PROJECT: Tee Shirt Headbands

The next project I want to share with y'all is a great way to repurpose some of your old tee shirts. I love making things out of old tee shirts because I have so many of them and there are so many different colors and designs that can be used from them. Below is a picture of the project I am going to walk you through, a tee shirt headband, modeled by my friend Diana.


Here is a photo of just a headband:


Now I will walk you through a tutorial of this easy project. First is to cut strips of a tee shirt. I have a huge collection of old tee shirts for this so I chose a combination of 5 colors and cut one inch strips off the bottom of the tee shirt. I wanted to do a bunch of these headbands so I went ahead and cut oodles of strips (this is a time where the cutting mat and rotary cutter are AMAZING!!!) --


I took one strip each of the 5 colors I wanted to work with and cut the loop once (the strip of tee shirt will be in a loop if you cut it off the bottom of the tee shirt in one piece). Now you have 5 long strips, each one inch wide. Next I layered these all on top of one another and sewed across one end to hold them together while I braided them.


To braid the strips together I did a 5 strand braid which is really easy once you get it. I clipped the piece to a book with a binder clip to secure it while braiding, but you could use whatever you wish to do this. First you lay all 5 strips apart then take the outermost strip on one side and bring it in going over the first strip and under the next strip and leave it now in the middle of all the strips. Repeat this step from the other side.




In the above photo you can see better how the braiding is done. The light blue strip was on the outermost left side so I brought it into the center by going over the dark blue strip and under the dark green strip then left it in the middle. The next step would be to bring the gray in from the right by going over the white strip and them under the light blue strip. Then return to the left side again.

Continue braiding until your headband reaches the desired length. I make mind about 16/17 inches because they have some stretch and I also add an elastic piece at the bottom so they can fit many sizes.


I sewed again at the end of the headband to hold the strips together.


Now it was time to add the ending pieces. I used black hair elastics (half of one for each headband) and some black ribbon.

I cut enough ribbon to wrap around the end of the headband then placed it under the headband with the hair elastic on top of this. I used a dot of hot glue to secure this and wrapped the remaining ribbon around the end.

I did this for the other side also, using the other end of the elastic. I then hand sewed over the ends to make sure they were nice and secure since they would get a lot of tugging later.

Here is the finished product



Also here are some photos of me sporting some of the other headbands I made that day




This idea was originally planted in my head by this awesome shop on Etsy which sells 5 strand headbands. However theirs are made out of painted fabric and suede and have different closures.

Theif and Bandit on Etsy

If you like my version with the tee shirt fabric and aren't crafty or do not have the time/supplies for this project, I have made them for sale in a new etsy store, CreationsByBonnybee!


I started this store in addition to my jewelry shop, Bonnybee Designs, to sell other handmade goods people might like, particularly ones seen made on this blog! So if you like it, but can't make it, buy it!

Thank you all for following and I would love to hear from you in comments below...Do you like this project? Are you going to try it? Do you make headbands of another variety yourself?

Happy Crafting,

*Bonnybee