Of all the handmade gifts I made last year, these were my favorite.
I nearly kept them.
But instead, I gave them to my friend Steph, for whom I made them. I still haven’t made any for myself.
Someday.
You may be shocked at how easy these are to make. Seriously, seriously easy but they look so intricate no one would guess.
This project is all about the materials. Once you get the right materials, you’ll get these finished in no time. You’ll need hair clips– these are extra large bobby pins, I think they’re made by Conair and they come in perfect metallic colors for a Steampunk clip. You’ll need hot glue. You’ll also need gears and brads. I got mine from my local craft store. Both the gears and brads were from the Tim Holtz line. (The brads, I believe, came from the game spinners package, but you can also get the brads on their own but I don’t know if they’re the same size.) Lastly, you’ll need some floral pendants for the base of the embellished part of the clip. I think these were meant to be earrings, and they came from a larger set. I had to separate them from other parts, but I loved the sliver filigree look. You’ll just want to make sure whatever you put at the base is proportionate to the size of the gears you have. It also works best if it has a hole in the center, but I think you can work with it either way.
Ok, so now I’m going to tell you how to assemble them. The hardest part is figuring out the gears that look best together. Once you’ve got that figured out, you take the brad, push it through the centers of the gears and the pendant, fold back the overhang and glue the whole thing to the bobby pin with hot glue. The end.
Seriously, that’s it.
I found some of the gears were easier to put on the brad than others, and one of them I had to work to make the whole juuuuuuust a smidge bigger. But other than that, these worked out really well.
And I wanted to keep them.
Aren’t they purdy?
I hope they inspire you to create!