Fold over elastic no-crease hair ties have been popular in “girl world” for a while now and can often be found in boutiquey shops donning everything from floral prints to unicorns. But did you know you can make your own?!
Apparently this is NOT common knowledge!? I gifted a few bundles of these no-crease hair ties to some gal pals for GALentine’s Day and some of them were SHOCKED to discover that I made them myself. I was shocked that they were shocked! Miss Liz and I have been making these things for YEARS!
I live in DIY-land. One of my favorite pastimes is finding cute (and often times, expensive) things and figuring out how to make my own version on the cheap. So sometimes I take that knowledge for granted and am puzzled that it wouldn’t occur to everyone to DIY something. I know…I’m such a DIY snob.
But guess what girls, you can totally make them yourself for a fraction of the cost (I made a few dozen for the cost of 8 at some stores) and it’s hella easy and fun! Whip some up for your besties! Customize with your favorite icons and characters or make some to match your school or team colors!
How To Make No-Crease Hair Ties
First thing you’ll want to do is get your hands on some fold over elastic – also called flat elastic or elastic ribbon. You can buy this at most craft or sewing supply stores and even Amazon has a pretty decent selection of fun colors and patterns for reasonable prices. Like this grab bag of glittery goodness!
Most of the time, this ribbon will come on a spool or in “1 yard” strips. I use “1 yard” loosely but be warned it’s not always an exact 36 inches when you buy pre-cut packs. I could get 3 ties out of some pieces and 4 out of others. ? *shrug*
Trim your ribbon. I found that 10 inches was perfect for a standard adult/teen sized hair tie. If you have thicker or thinner hair you may want to adjust by an inch or two to suit your hair needs so that you can get the perfect fit. Yay customization!
Let’s do this!
Fold your piece of ribbon in half with the patterned side out (if your ribbon has a pattern).
Tie the loose ends in a simple overhand loop knot.
Pull the knot tight and push the knot as close to the loose ends of the ribbon as possible without it coming untied.
Trim off any excess ribbon and viola!
I generally don’t have much issue with the ends fraying, but it honestly depends on the elastic. To help keep it from fraying you can use a lighter (or candle flame) to carefully singe the cut ends of the elastic. Alternately you can brush the cut ends with a little bit of clear nail polish.
That’s it! I told you it was crazy easy! You can bang out dozens of these over the span of an episode of The Great British Bake Off (or whatever you are binging).
Not only are these no-crease hair ties fabulously easy to make, they are also fashionable as you can make them to match any outfit. Keep one on your wrist for those pony-worthy moments. BONUS: it doubles as a cute bracelet (which is way better than those old elastic ponytail holders and they don’t cut off your circulation). ?
Though it could probably be called tacky for someone of “my age” to be wearing a hair tie as a bracelet, sometimes a girl just needs to be ready at any moment to pull her hair up and get her DIY on!
(Please don’t mind my messy mane. It’s been a long month and I get my hair done next week! Yay!)
Now sweep up that pony, girl (or man-bun for the gents?) and get to work, cuties!