Vintage Button Hair Ties, the Saga (a non-fiction drama in one post).

I had an idea for a cool, simple hair tie that featured one stand out awesome vintage button attached to an elastic ponytail holder.  Simple enough right?  Ah no.

Things I didn't think about.  Button hole sizes vs. hair tie sizes...they usually don't play nice together.  They are ok if you say...cut the elastic in half.   But then, how to get it back together professionally?  Enter sewing (with the dreaded dun dun duuunnnn music here...as it usually spells disaster in my case).  Ugh, I decided it was a good idea to cut a hair elastic and weave a button through it.  Then I was going sew the two ends together and, Ta Da!, a perfect vintage button ponytail holder.   Right....

Yes yes, I know you're thinking...why don't you just sew the button onto the elastic.  I did think of that (whew) and have made some hair ties in that fashion, but I also really enjoy the look of the actual elastic weaving through the button like thread.  I want it to look that way.

So back to the sewing...it was a hot mess (yes yes terrible saying, but in this case very valid).  Elastics are covered with fabric which frays and when sewing so it just doesn't come back together the way it should.  I put that idea to bed after a few failed attempts and many expletives.

Next idea, those terrible little metal clamps that everyone has gone away from.  Yes, I was thinking of going backwards but hey, it should hold the two pieces of elastic together right?  Come to find those little suckers are not easy to get ahold of unless you want to wait for shipping from China.  You can get something that will kind of work, but it's meant for ribbon and to me, if it doesn't look exactly the way I'd want to receive a gift/purchase, I don't want to do it that way.

On to gluing a piece of satin elastic or ribbon around the two ends basically gluing it back together with a pretty band aid.  Eh, it worked but again, not good enough.

So I went to the thinking of traditional button hair ties (fabric covered buttons on an elastic).  They simply pull the elastic through the hole on the back of their button.  I don't have said hole on the back of my button, so I was going to have to weave the whole hair tie through both sides of the button and pull.  Wouldn't you know, the simplest answer worked.  It was rather easy.  There is a caveat of course, I have to use buttons with very large holes because of course now your elastic is doubled up as it's trying to push it's way through.  It's not ideal, but if you find the right button, it's magic.

I love them.