All DIY Tutorials

This pearl hair clip DIY uses beads and clear thread to make beautiful accessories! Perfect for breezy spring days.

I am such a bead geek. As soon as I saw all the pearl bead hair clips and bags that are are around in the shops at the moment, I recognised they were all made made with my favourite bead weaving technique, right angle weave! Regular readers will be familiar with my love of this stitch as it has featured in many a DIY here at Make and Fable. Now, I don’t have the patience to bead an entire bag. But a hair clip? Oh yes.

You Will Need:

• 7 x 8mm pearl beads
• 6 x 6mm pearl beads
• 3 x 5mm pearl beads
• 1m of 0.25mm supplemax or other clear thread
• Snap hair clip, 49mm x 13mm
• Scissors
• Marker pen

Top Tips

Any beads can be used, as long as they are the right size. As a bead geek, I’m using Swarovski pearl beads in Lavender. But Czech glass pearls are also a good choice.

The hair clip needs to have those three little holes at the top to secure the beads to. And if the clip is a different size, you might need to alter the number and size of the beads used so they fit.

How to make:

1.Cut a 1 metre length of supplemax. Because the thread is quite sturdy, we don’t need to use a needle. So to make it a bit easier to see what we are doing with the clear thread, use a permanent marker pen to colour in both of the ends.

2. The hair clip has three holes at the widest end that we are going to secure our thread too. Take the ends of the thread through the lower two holes; so, one end through one hole, and the other thread through the hole next to it. going from front to back.

3.Tie the ends together, making sure the ends are of equal length, then push both ends together through the single hole at the top. Both threads should now be coming out of the top hole on the top of the clip.

4.Take an 8mm bead and take one end of the thread through the hole from right to left, and the the other end from left to right. This is known as a crossover bead.

5.Pull the threads until the bead sits on top of the hair clip. Then add a single 8mm on to each thread.

6.Add another 8mm crossover bead as we did in step 4 and pull the threads until it forms a square. This is one unit of right angle weave.

7.To secure the beading, after each unit of right angle weave we are going to secure the threads around the sides of the clip. To do this, open up the clip and take each thread around the outside and up through the centre of the clip. Make sure you are just going around the top part of the clip (so the part that sits on top of your hair) or you won’t be able to open and close the clip! Finally, crossover the threads again through the last bead added.

8.Add a single 8mm on each thread, followed by another 8mm crossover bead. Secure the thread in the same way as before, by going around the outside of the clip, up through the centre and crossing over in the last bead.

9.This time add a single 6mm bead on each thread, followed by a 6mm crossover. Secure as before.

10.Repeat step 9 with another round using 6mm beads.

11.For the last round, add a single 5mm bead on each thread, followed by a 5mm crossover bead.

12.To secure the beads, take the threads around the outside and up through the small hole at the tip of the clip. Tie them together to hold.

13.To finish off, knot each end around one of the thread coming out of the last bead, take the thread through the next bead and cut off the excess. Repeat with the other thread.

Once you have got the hang of making these, you will want to make them in more colours! I went for classic cream, using Swarovski Light Creamrose pearls and multi coloured option, using Swarovski Coral, Pink Coral and Iridescent White!

Please share this Pearl Hair Clip DIY tutorial if you enjoyed it, and if you have any questions, leave a comment below or come and find me on Instagram ! 

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