Five minutes equals quick baby girl gift...

Got five minutes? Perfect -- you can make a quick baby gift! When I found out my last baby was a girl, I was a little overwhelmed with all the fun girly accessories you can get, especially when it comes to headbands. But I think these are my favorite. Not even sure what to call these, maybe elastic ribbon? You can order it online in several places. I bought this from Pick Your Plum when they had a deal to get several colors at once.

I love this stuff because it's really soft and very stretchy. Then you can add whatever flower/clippie you want. Plus, I've sewn a little pocket into it so the metal clip only has to touch baby's head a little. That always seemed so uncomfortable to me. Plus it will hide your seams under your accessory. Nice...

For a newborn size, I cut this 13 inches, which worked perfectly. I would add one inch per size you want to go up (about 14 inches for 0-3 months, 15 inches for 3-6 months, 16 inches for 6-12 months, etc).

I also decreased the stitch length on my sewing machine a little to sew this (it's usually 2.5, this is one setting down at 2.0).

Now, making sure your elastic is straight, you're going to overlap the ends about 1 inch with the right side facing out.

Stitch the two sides together close to the left side, so you're stitching the underneath side close to the edge and you have the top still long. I stitch down, backstitch all the way up, and stitch it again.

The arrows mark the edge of each side in the picture above. The bottom piece is stitched close to the edge on the left. Now, with the right side, you're going to fold that edge under...

You fold under just a tiny bit, just enough so you can hold it in place. Then you'll stitch that side down (so you'll be stitching through three layers). I use a wooden coffee stirrer to hold it in place while I stitch it down. And no worries if you accidentally stitch through it -- I've done it plenty of times. Your fingers are safe, it won't hurt your machine or your project.

And that's it! Then you have something that looks nice from the outside if you decide to do a plain headband, or you can easily hide underneath a flower or bow. Just slide the clip between the stitches in between your two layers of elastic ribbon.

Here's the outside...

And the inside...

Sweet! I whipped out probably three of these in my five minutes. The longest part is changing your thread on your machine. :)

Quick announcement: My life is super topsy-turvy right now because we're getting ready to move, but it's going to be a crazy, spread-out move. We're probably leaving in June but won't get to our new location (New York, baby!) until August. I have so many fun tutorials I want to share, but I honestly don't know if/when I'll be doing anything on this blog in the following months. So thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you when I see you. :)