It’s fun to eat Chinese food with chopsticks but what do you do with the chopsticks after the food is gone? Throw them away? Never! Use them to make cool hair accessories for a young girl. She can push them into her ponytail or bun to decorate her hair like no one else’s. All her friends will be jealous – and wanting a pair of their own – when they see your little girl’s elegant chopstick accessories.
Even if you don’t normally use hand tools you can easily cut the chopsticks down to size. Use a small handsaw to cut the large end of the chopsticks off. Cut the sticks so that the small ends of the sticks measure six inches. You can make this a little longer for a grown woman’s hair. Discard the cutoff ends or save them for a future project. Sharpen the cut ends of the sticks with a pencil sharpener. After doing so, the end might be a little too sharp, and if that’s the case simply file them down a little with a nail file, emery board or sandpaper.
Now there are all sorts of different designs you can create simply by the colors, embellishments and other accents you choose. Paint the sticks with gold spray paint for an elegant look or hot pink for a young, sassy effect. Although you’ll paint the entire stick you’ll only embellish the top portion. The bottom portion is used to insert the finished accessory into the hair. You might have to paint the chopsticks more than once to get the depth of color and coverage you want. You can also use the chopsticks as-is, without paint.
One design you can make for the hair accessories is done with feathers. Glue the end of a narrow piece of ribbon onto the end of the chopstick. As you wind the ribbon around and around the stick, position feathers here and there, and secure them with the winding ribbon. Every half-inch or so, put a dot of hot glue to hold the ribbon and feathers in place. If you want, you can slide a bead onto the ribbon between each set of feathers. Wind the ribbon down until it covers only about a third of the chopstick.
Make a different type of hair accessory by using a chenille pipe cleaner. Wrap the pipe cleaner around the top third of the chopstick and glue it in place. The pipe cleaner can be the same color that you’ve painted the stick or can be a different color entirely. If you need to, use clothes pins to hold the pipe cleaner in place as the glue dries. After the pipe cleaner is in place simply glue a small object onto the end, above the pipe cleaner. The object can be a bead, a button, a fake jewel or even a tiny pom-pom.
You don’t necessarily have to have a lot of craft supplies to make the hair accessories. Paint the sticks, cover the top third with glue, and roll them in glitter. This makes an elegant design that is perfect for holidays and special occasions. Glitter makes it easy to create a glimmering set of hair accessories, but if you have more time, you can make something even more impressive. Use small, fake jewels to make a bejewelled version of the chopsticks that everyone will notice. A piece of rolled-up tape can help you hold on to the jewels as you position then on the chopsticks. It takes some time to make the jeweled hair accessories but you’ll cherish them for years to come!
To wear the chopstick hair accessories simply place your hair in a ponytail or a bun. Insert the first chopstick so that it goes through the top right portion and down through the bottom left portion. Do the opposite with the other stick, inserting it in through the top left and down to the bottom right. When they’re properly inserted, they create an “x” shape, but you can only see the very top and the very bottom of the sticks. The middle area of the sticks will be concealed beneath the hair. The beautiful hair accessories are not just for little girls, either. Women can make them and wear them to evening affairs or for holidays and special events.
You’ll love the chopstick hair accessories so much that you’ll be eating lots and lots of Chinese food from now on! Now how do you keep up with all of them? Make a stand for your assorted chopstick hair accessories by using a simple block of Styrofoam. Paint it or otherwise decorate it and simply stick the chopsticks into the foam when you’re not wearing them. The Styrofoam makes it easy to keep up with the pairs and to keep them from getting soiled or damaged.
Reference:
- Purchase cheap craft supplies here: www.orientaltrading.com
