DIY Elastic Ribbon Hair Ties

Every year, on the day before school lets out for winter break, my daughters like to give out gifts to a handful of their best buddies.  Some years those gifts have been store bought, but last year they were home made.... well, they were home assembled...

A few weeks before Christmas I found a bunch of tiny jars from Pier One at the thrift store. They were sealed in their original packaging, came in sets of four, and cost 99 cents a box.  At less that 25 cents per jar, I bought them all.  After giving them a good cleaning, the girls and I filled them with assorted red and green candies, covered them with red and white striped fabric, and tied them shut with baker's twine.  They were a huge hit and left my girls wanting to do another DIY present this year.  

Inspiration for the 2012 gift hit during a trip to Michael's where I found a roll of elasticized ribbon.   One look and I realized it was the exact same ribbon used in these pricey hair ties.  Now is the moment where I cop to owning said pricey hair ties.  In fact, that's one of mine pictured below.

And I own them because they're great: they're soft, they hold your hair without damaging it, and they come in tons of cute colors.  I just never stopped to think about what a rip-off they are.

But that doesn't matter because now that I know you can get the elasticized fabric at Michael's, I never have to buy one again.  Even better than that, it gave me and the girls a perfect idea for this year's Christmas gift:  DIY elastic hair ties!  

In an effort to personalize ours, we added initial beads.  (We specifically looked for beads with a hole that could accommodate the elastic.)

Then it was just a matter of cutting the elastic into strips (ours were roughly 8" long), threading the bead(s) through, and tying them off.

Kind of hard to tell the difference between the handmade one below and the pricey one above, isn't it?

We made three bands per girl and put them in these cute tulle favor bags.  

After that we added personalized gift cards and the project was complete!  

And here are my daughters modeling the hair ties.  (I have since trimmed the ends on the pink one.)

Update:

I recently discovered that there is a named for this type of "ribbon."  

It's called "fold over elastic."  You can buy some by clicking here.