Snow White Cooling Bow - Happily Ever After For Camp

I have shared on another post that our "theme" for girls camp this year is Snow White. I had a thought a few weeks back that the head bands I was making that are made using yarn may be kinda hot. 

I remembered a headband we had a few years ago that had the water beads in them and you got it wet and it would keep you cool for hours. 

I thought how much fun it would be to make those type of headbands for the girls to wear during the day and on their hikes. 


I have purchased a few bags of those silica water gels in the past and they were quite expensive so I "put it out there" like I do and figured my Heavenly Father would take care of it as you always does. 

The next day or two, I looked on a "yard-sale" site for our area on facebook and I don't normally do that. I may post things on it but I don't usually look for items on there. While looking on the site, a woman said she had some water gel crystals and some freeze dried cricket food listed for free. 
 
I wrote her asking if the gels were the type used in the headbands or for flowers and she said they were. I asked if I could come and pick the gels up and not the other items she had listed. 

She allowed me to go and pick them up. She had two larger bags of the larger crystals and some smaller sized ones as well. 


The local dollar store also had some collapsible vases with some of the clear gels in them. I figure you can get several headbands out of the vase gels. 

I had some fabric pieces left from the sheets I used to make the capes for "Snow White" for camp and decided to use that same fabric so they would match the cape. 

I cut some long strips of fabric. They need to be at least one and a half to two times longer than the distance around the head so that they can be gathered. They also need to be twice as wide as the elastic you are using and a bit extra for seam allowance. 

Sew right sides together and turn it right sides out after it is stitched. I use a long knitting needle or crochet Tunisian hook to push the fabric through itself to turn it right side out but I use the back of the hook or needle. You can use a dowel as well but I like the button type tip of the knitting needle as it won't poke holes in the fabric. 
 
I then measure the size of elastic. Measure the elastic to be once around the head. Once you have it cut at exactly once around the head.  You then thread the elastic through the long tube. If you put a safety pin through the end of the elastic, it will help you push it though the tube using the knitting needle to push it. 

Once you have the elastic through the tube, you will have the tube gathered to the size of the elastic, you overlap the ends of the elastic and zig-zag the edges together which makes it just a little smaller than the head which holds it on. You can then overlap the ends of the fabric and sew through it all making that the spot that you will sew the red bow onto.


Make a shorter tub of the red fabric that is the width size you want for the bow. You need to make it just over twice as long as you want the bow to be. 

Once you have it sewn and turned right sides out, you make the bow by folding the sides over to meet at the back of the bow. You can make about a 1 inch long tube and use that as the center of the bow.
Wrap the 1 inch strip around the center of the bow and stitch the back of it together in as tightly as you can so that it gathers the center of the bow and holds both ends of the bow back in.  

Now, you just have to get the head band wet when you want to keep cool. Once you are through using it, wash it gently by hand, rinse it out to get any sweat and soap off it and allow it to hang dry. Make sure it will get fully dry as you don't want it to mildew. 
 
I kept mine in the fridge after getting it wet sometimes to allow it to get really cold and then I would wear it and that really did a great job of keeping me cool as I worked in the yard. I will have to find it and use it this summer. 

Didn't they come out cute and they do look like Snow White's bow but you can make these in any color and you don't have to add a bow and you just put the seam part at the back of the head.