A Tutorial: DIY Headband Holder

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I came across the image above on Pinterest* a while back, and utterly fell in love.  It may have been the burlap, because I have a definite soft spot for the nubby texture, or it may have been the clever up-cycling of an oatmeal container.  Either way, I quickly pinned it and started thinking about how to make it my own.

We eat a LOT of oatmeal in this house, and those oatmeal containers are very sturdy!  Every time I toss one I feel a little bad, so I was excited about putting it to good use.  Now, I will admit I made this before I was blogging, so there aren't step-by-step photos, but I think you'll easily get the idea.

My humble materials- an oatmeal container & an old pillar candle holder I picked up at Goodwill for the purposes of this project, to use as a base.  Notice the price- $1.91- you can't beat that!!  At $1.99 for the oatmeal, the project total is a whopping $3.90, though I'm not sure you'd even count the cost of the oatmeal!

I quickly got to painting the pillar candle holder in my favorite glossy black acrylic paint.  Then I looked through my fabric stash for the most neutral fabric I had.  I ended up using a scrap of fabric that was actually from a sample book, and was FREE at my favorite fabric store. (It's awesome, they usually have free bins by the registers that are filled with small scraps of fabric, pieces from sample books, and little bits of trim.  I always scour them for cool things to save for future projects.)  This fabric had more color to it, but I used the reverse side of the fabric because I loved the more neutral tones.

I used spray adhesive to coat the oatmeal container & fabric, allowed them to get a bit tacky, and then adhered the fabric to the container.  I also cut a circle of fabric and adhered it to the top of the lid.  The sides of the lid were still a little tacky, so I took the opportunity to add a little satin ribbon trim in a matching chocolate brown color.  And then being the perfectionist I am, I also added a little of the same ribbon around the top of the oatmeal container and along the back seam so you couldn't see the edges & seams of the fabric. 

Now came the only tricky part- how to attach the container to its base.  I ended up using an additional oatmeal container lid (I told you we eat a lot of oatmeal!) and used spray adhesive to secure it to the base, set my oatmeal container on top of it, and then hot-glued all around to make sure it was secure.  Hmmm, I bet you're thinking a photo of that process would be really helpful- Sorry!!!  Any future project tutorials will come with lots of step-by-step pics, I promise!!  For fun, I hot-glued some of the leftover trim from babygirl's valances to tie in a bit of pink, and that's it!

This couldn't have been a simpler project.  It was made wholly with things I had around the house, apart from the base which was a steal at Goodwill, and only took about 1 hour to complete while babygirl was napping- that's my kind of project!  

Here is the finished product adorned with headbands.  There's also lots of storage inside for the not-so-cute bands, elastics, etc.

Next, I have plans to make a holder for all of babygirl's hair barrettes.  They are currently clipped to a length of ribbon which is hanging from the closet door knob, but I have a much cuter idea in mind.  Stay tuned!!

*If you want to follow me on Pinterest, I'm over there with the username: mamacarriet.  Though I have to admit I don't pin that often, I prefer to pin-surf other people's pins!!  And if you need an invite to join, just let me know, I'm happy to send you one.