Rodarte's Galactic Hair Clip, a DIY

One of my favorite shows this season happened to be that fantastic team from Rodarte's odd yet inspiring collection (see handsy look from #NYFW Faves). One of my favorite elements? The starry, galactic hair pieces that adorned the messy hair on the runway. When I got to thinking about it, it was easy for me to exclaim "I can do this myself!" So, I did.

Photo by ImaxTree

What you'll need:

• A large crafting barrette or hairclip. Make sure it's the kind that you can build on for crafting purposes. These are usually a couple dollars at your local craft supply store.

• Star shaped buttons, jewels, trinkets or charms. These can also be found at your local craft store or ordered online on the cheap. To attain this look, I grabbed different sizes.

• Metalic gold craft paint

• Small paint brush

• Tacky Glue or a Hot Glue gun

• Maybe a little crafting wire or sticks, if you are ambitious enough to build onto the barrette (which I will be doing)

Step One:
Take out all of the star shaped trinkets, clips and wire that you could imagine needing for this project. We will be painting all of our goods with the metallic gold. I know that if I am going to be painting anything, I want to make sure that I am only doing it once if at all possible. I tell you this now, as going through this project, I actually had to paint ON the barrette because I did not paint enough stars or trinkets. Paint everything you will want to use that will be visible (for example, I only painted the top of the barrette because that is all you would probably see). 

Note: I used both a metallic gold and a copper color to add some depth and a little blending of colors. This took a little practice but I eventually found a shade to my liking. 

 





Let all of these goods dry until they are dry (duh). I know this seems rather obvious but hey, there is a reason that those little silicon packets that come in new purses says "Do not eat". Side note: Here is where I will tell you that I did not choose botox and Extra Gum adverts for any specific reason. I ripped them out of a mag so that I would have something to dry on.


Step Two:
Decide how expansive you want this solar system to be. I wanted to recreate this look as closely as I could so therefore had to add a little length to the ends of the barrette to make it a larger base for my trinkets. I used a gold sticks leftover from another project which did the trick pretty nicely. I simply secured it then used the ol' hot glue gun for it's securing powers. If you want your statement hair clip to be smaller, you can stick with what you start with.

Step Three:
Start with your larger trinkets and start gluing in the center of the barrette. These are the focal point of the piece and we will continue to add stars in smaller sizes as we start gluing out. Now, I thought this was going to be super easy but it turns out that I wanted to try and create an effect that was similar to that of Rodarte's hair clip but in order to do that, I needed more gold stars than I had anticipated (see tip on painting anything you could imaging possibly needing). I ended up gluing more stars to the barrette and then painting them on the barrette which was not ideal. In order to paint on the barrette, I needed to do glue cleanup so that I wasn't painting bubbles and remnants of hot glue. Learn from my mistake, people!

Step Four:
After you have finished gluing and painting, I must remind you to let this little lady dry before putting it anywhere near your hair. Wet paint and hot glue would probably be a hard combination to remove (cut) from your hair, or so I would imagine. I am toying with the idea of adding a craft gloss to this as a sealant but for now, it seems pretty sturdy. Once dry, the only thing you have to worry about doing, is styling this bad @$$ piece of art you just created into a fierce hairstyle. I know that I am not going to be afraid to rock this.

VOILA!