Animal Ear Headbands

When it comes to sewing, I adore and admire the projects that many of my talented friends make, but I know that my skills aren't there yet.  I have a hard time getting things to look just right, and I often end up frustrated and with a finished product that I'm not exactly proud of.

Enter felt!  Felt is a material that is very easy to work with, mainly because it doesn't fray.  This means no heming, and less work, which is always a good thing.  I want to share one of my most rewarding felt projects.  This project was rewarding because it was easy, and because I ended up making something super adorable.  (Of course, the baby is pretty cute too!)

I stumbled across this post on the lovely blog hart+sew.  Her animal ear headbands are simply adorable!  I knew they would be something that I could make and that my girls could have a lot of fun with.  (And also, I want to fill the dress-up box with as many non-princess items as possible.)

I emulated hart+sew's ears as much as possible, with a few of my own additions.  Here's how you can make your own:

1. Buy a set of six plastic headbands from the dollar store.  They only had one set, so I made six ears in total.
2. Decide on the animals.  I wanted ones that most often appear in my daughter's pretend play.  I decided on: monkey, horse (the request was for purple ears), mouse, lion, pig, and cat.
3. Draw a template on paper for each animal.  The ears measure one and a half inches across, and range in height from two to four inches.  For each ear I cut out one inner ear, two big ears, and one piece of interfacing the same size as the big ear.  Of course, I only used felt instead of fabric, because felt is my favourite thing to work with.
4. Sew the inner ear piece on to a big ear.
5. Sandwich the interfacing between the big ear pieces.  Sew around the big ear. 
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the other ear.
7. Use hot glue to attach the ears to the headband.
8. Secure the ears with embroidery thread.
9. Have fun with your new dress-up props!