Learn some great tips on how to make your own paper quilling hair clips and other accessories!
Two years ago I was asked by a customer to create some hairclips with paper quilled designs on them. I was excited about the idea, and began right away! It was easy to start making some designs. I then had to find some hairclips to adhere the desigsn to and figure out the best way to do so. This is when the difficulties began! Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes 🙂
The first thing I tried was to use a strong craft glue to glue the designs to regular metal snap hairclips. Once dried the pieces immediately came apart.
Next I tried a hot glue gun, since I heard great things about them! I searched out a good quality one and tried it out. It seemed to work until I discovered that after opening and closing the clip a few times the hot glue detaches from the metal.
After seeking out some advice my next course of action was to try epoxy resin glue. It was definitely a strong glue, but it was not flexible at all and it immediately snapped off of the metal clip as soon as it was opened. oops!
At this point I began to feel quite discouraged. But not ready to give up! I decided to seek out a different type of snap hair clip and I ordered some that have have little plastic pads at the end
I knew I was getting closer to a solution, so I tried two more things. Lo and behold, both of them worked!!
The first idea that worked was to wind thread around the end of a plain metal snap hairclip. I don’t have a photo, but I basically threaded a needle and wound it back and forth in an “X” shape around the end of the clip, through the two slits as well. You could also do this with one of those metal snap clips that has a hole in the end. I then used a hot glue gun to adhere the design to the clip. The hot glue surrounds the threads to create a permanent and flexible bond. Success! It is not the most professional look, however, with the thread at the end. It certainly works for your own clips at home, though!
Lastly I tried a hot glue gun with the clips with the plastic pad, and it worked better than I even hoped!! The hairclips I finally made were sturdy and do NOT fall apart!
Here is the final list of how to make a great paper quilled hairclips:
1. Make your designs of choice. (try some of these tutorials, or just solid circles work as well.  The daisies and butterflies are especially cute)
2. Set out your hairclips
3. Heat up your hot glue gun.
4. Heat up the glue pad at the end of the hairclip. I find the easiest way to do this is to touch the glue pad to the hot tip of the glue gun until it is warmed up (5-20 seconds, my hot glue gun has a rubber coating on the end, not sure if this would work if your glue gun has just a bare metal tip). You could also just set them out in a sunny spot for awhile. Heating up the plastic pad helps the hot glue to adhere more strongly.
5. Put a small blob of hot glue on the plastic pad. Stick one of your paper quilling designs onto the hot glue blob. Be careful not to burn your fingers!!!
6. Let sit to dry/cool.
7. Once they are dry/cool, dip or paint the design with a sealant or varnish to make it water resistant and more sturdy.
Ta Da!
You can use this same method for making hair clips that have felt decorations at the end, or ribbons, anything really!
Feel free to leave any comments or questions, and stick around to view some more great pages here!
Click here to view free paper quilling tutorials!
Click here to view paper quilling tips and tricks!
Click here to view a list of places to buy quilling supplies around the world!
Click here to view some of my own quilling projects, with tips so you can make your own if you’d like!
*All products and supplies in this post I purchased on my own.
*This post contains some affiliate links, and some non affiliate links.  If you purchase products through the affiliate links I get a small percentage (at no extra cost to you!).  I only link to products that I believe in and/or love to use myself.  Thank you for supporting my blog!
hi i am from india i want to know what selant is used for quiling
Hi 🙂 If you scroll down on this page you can see all of my articles on using sealants: http://www.honeysquilling.com/paper-quilling-tips/ Hope that helps, let me know if you have any particular questions!
this is really helpful.. thanks a lot ma’m..
hi, can you please tell me if the glue pad you have mentioned is the double sided cello tape, which is little sponge in nature. i too have tried all these techniques to stick quilled flowers to clips….
The hair clip I use has a hard plastic pad. It doesn’t have any glue or stickiness itself, but it’s used to glue things onto, which is why it’s called a glue pad. You can purchase them from several places online, or maybe even find in some local craft shops.
Hi using glue pad is 100% necessary is it? Is there any alternative?
Hi 🙂 You can give it a try without. When I tried just the metal clip with the hot glue gun, it stuck at first, but came off pretty soon. It will peel off of the metal clip. The only other sure way to get it to stick without the plastic pad on it that I found is to wrap string around the end of the clip (wind it in and out of the holes at the end) and then adhere the hot glue to that. It will stick to the string well and not come off.
Hi. Thanks a lot for your response 🙂 Would you please tell me that, what the material of the string could be? Or like the intro for this post says, can I use the normal thread or so?
Yes, I just used normal sewing thread
Hi.. wat type of plastic pads you have used? I am from India I didn’t get like that pads. Any alternative way to stick the designes on clips with out using the glue gun.
I have not found a successful way to glue the designs on the clips without using the glue gun – and the glue gun has to be in combination with either the plastic pad, or wrapping string around the end of a hair clip and gluing on the string. The glue needs something to stick to. There certainly might be another glue out there somewhere that works, but I haven’t found it yet!
I have made the same but when we try to put the clip on hair the quilled flower which I have stick come out.
How exactly have you attached the quilled flower to the hair clip? As I mentioned, it came off when I tried to glue it to just a metal clip. I had to use the metal clips with the plastic pad attached to them, and use the hot glue on that. Then they stay.
I am unable to stick quilling flower on a tictac hairclip with hotglue or any other glue. can you please guide on this.
Yes, it is tricky! As mentioned in this post, I found two things that work. The best is to get that same type of hair clip, but the ones that have a plastic pad on them for gluing onto, and use hot glue on that. The other option is to securely wind thread around the end of the hair clip and use hot glue on that.
How about e60000 craft adhesive , will that work
Hi Priyanka! I have tried e6000 and it’s great for some things, but it did not hold to the hair clips for me, because of the movement on the hair clips. It might work on the hair clips with plastic pads, or with the string around them.