Melted Bead Flower Barrettes

I saw this post on Pinterest: about melting pony beads to create flowers.  I have a bunch of beads lying around and some girls' birthdays coming up, so I decided to give it a try. 

Turned out pretty cute, huh?

Start with placing the beads in flower shapes on a pan.  I did not place down wax paper or anything (maybe I should have at first), but they came up with no problem.  There was no mess on the pan.  They did not picture very well, I'm guessing because they are clear and reflected the light. 

 I cooked them at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.  I thought it was long and high temp, but the beads melt at a very high temp and even then some had to go back in.  They solidify very fast as well.  If you are using a different type of bead you may want to do a test run first.

The flowers turned out very cute!  My son actually wanted some to play with, so you could stop at this point.  They are very solid and will not break easily.  Or, you can scroll down and see how I turned them into barrettes.

I bought these type of barrettes at a beauty supply store - a few dollars for a 10 pack.  I also saw them in a local grocery store.  I started with cutting some ribbon that is about twice the length of the clip.

I used my hot glue gun (set on low heat - you don't want the ribbon to melt or your fingers to burn!) and glued the ribbon to the bottom of the top barrette and then over the top.

Next, I clipped the end of the ribbon so only about 3/4 of an inch of ribbon was left hanging over the edge.  I added hot glue and folded the ribbon over to complete the coverage on the top of the barrette.

Next step - hot glue the flower onto your ribbon covered barrette.  Simple as that!

Beautiful, aren't they?

 Glue gun tip: if you have a lot of glue gun strings, don't worry!  Simply blow the barrette with a hair dryer.  It will remove all of those pesky glue gun strings :)