Make your own elastic hair ties for a fraction of what they sell for in stores!
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Have you seen these cute elastic hair ties in stores? You can often find them next to the register, begging you to take them home. You can find them at Ulta, Sephora, and even Anthropology, but making them yourself will save you some money and guarantee the colors you want.
How to Make Elastic Hair Ties
You will need 5/8″ elastic. The plain elastic with the line in the middle is called “fold over” elastic. I’ve seen it on the shelves at Michael’s and JoAnn’s. But I like ordering it from Amazon and having it shipped to my house. There are a lot of options on Amazon, like this Glitter Metallic that’s super cute!
Making them is as easy as cutting and tieing. First, cut the elastic to the length you want. Somewhere between 8-10″ is a good length, depending on how thick your hair is and how big your wrist is. A lot of girl’s like to wear them as bracelets. Not only are they cute on wrist, but when they want to pull their hair up, they always have an elastic handy.
Once they are cut, you’ll want to seal the ends. I ran the ends over the top of a lit candle to singe them.
Our girl’s camp has a cowgirl theme so I made these fun Pony Up cards for the hair ties to go on. We’ll be giving them out as a tuck in treat, because of bears and raccoons and the need to keep all food out of our tents. Even though they aren’t food I think the girls are going to love them!
For other Elastic Hair Tie Cards see:
Valentine Elastic Hair Tie Cards
St. Patricks Day Hair Tie Cards
I love these so much that I got online late tonight and ordered some too! These would make the cutest little gifts. Would you be willing to share the darling tag you created too? Once again, SO STINKIN darling. Well done and thanks for the heads up about the sale. I am a follower now. 🙂
Thanks Lorinda! The tag is offered as a download at the very bottom of the post.
Adorable! I love the cards, but was unable to get the download to work.
Hi-
Thought I would let you know that I tried to use the Miracle Ribbon Cutter on this type of elastic and it wouldn’t cut it. It ended up only partially cutting the elastic or burned the elastic at the ends. I suggest sticking with scissors and running a candle over it or using clear nail polish.
Thanks Lauren! I thought for sure it would work, but I’m extra glad I didn’t buy one now!
So sad I bought! I read this the first time without the edit.
I did the same thing. Completely my fault, I didn’t read all the way to the end.
I just got my elastic today in the mail (ordered from Sunshine Shoppe). I have already made two and I can’t wait to make the rest. Instant cute gratification! Thanks for the idea and the hint on where to buy.
Hi! Could you upload the file for the download again? Apparently it’s corrupted. Great Tutorial!
-Lala
Am I the only one having trouble with this? 🙁 I keep coming back and trying different ways to download, but no luck. I just keep being told the link contains an error…
Try again, it should be fixed. Thanks for letting me know!
Please don’t recommend that Magic Ribbon Cutter! It’s a terrible tool w/poor design. It works awesome for about 50 (if you’re lucky) cuts of ribbon, after that it will have drained 4 AA batteries & the heating wire will likely start to warp & fall out of its housing (it isn’t soldered on).
It does have cutting guides, but since you have to close the tool over the ribbon you’re cutting, you can accurately see exactly where it’s cutting and there’s no guide to keep the ribbon steady (you have to hold it down yourself, but if you’re not careful, you can damage the delicate heating wire).
I bought a 2nd ribbon cutter (like a fool) thinking the first was just a dud. I have 2 broken Imaginisce cutters & cut maybe 75-80 uses of of them combined and 12 wasted AA batteries. Save your $ a candle or lighter works better to heat seal ribbon/elastic.
Thank you so much for the wonderful idea as well as the printable! I just fell in love with the “Pony Up”…
I made these for my daughter’s dance teacher’s “helpers”….they turned out so cute!!! Merry Christmas! :o)
Came here to find what length I should use when making these. Thank you! I have quite a bit of fold over elastic scraps on hand, and couldn’t believe when I saw them in stores how much they were going for! These are going to cost me less than a penny each. Cute “Pony Up” cards, too!
what did you make the pony up cards out of? Also the tutorial was very helpful
They were printed on cardstock. Thank you!
Thank you. I have been giving them to my class mates as birthday presents and they love them.
Love the “pony up!” idea! I have over 200 prints of FOE foldover elastics at my online shop Enchanted Elastics. I’m bringing in lace elastic soon as well. Me and my girls are addicted to hair ties! Too much fun!
Hi, has anyone had trouble with the elastic stretching quickly? I have some FOE I used for headbands. It stretched out within about 4 hours. Any advice on the most durable kind? Would prestretching be the solution? Will try.
Thanks,
Anne
Love these, my Grandaughters all have long hair so these will be great…but I have another use.I am an amputee, I had my lower leg amputated 5 years ago, I fold over my pant leg to prevent it from getting caught under a wheel as well as not to drag & become dirty. I have used hair bands but they break. Love this.
I can’t wait to make these for my daughter’s softball team
Loving this idea. The download link doesn’t seem to be working. Can you please check it or perhaps let me know the dimension of each card and I’ll try to make it myself? Thanks!
Should be working now!
Hi, would you mind sharing the dimensions of the card? Just wondering what width you used that fits so nicely with the hair bands. Thank you kindly!
We’ve made loads of these and they are great gifts. We’ve found that using a line of puffy fabric paint on the inside of the elastic helps them stay in the hair a lot better, especially for girls like us with very straight, smooth hair!
That is a genius idea Anna!
Yes ,That is a terrific Idea Anna
What size if card stock is that ?
May you please fix download link? It seem doesn’t work 🙂
Curious if you get an error message? It’s working on our end, so we’re trying to pin point the problem.
Everything seems to be working now. Thanks for download. 🙂
They have the ribbon at Walmart for $1
Thanks ever so much for sharing this… five years later I was able to use it to make some last minute stocking stuffer-type presents for all my kitchen coworkers. … and it gave me an excuse to go to the notions store. Mille grazie!
Hooray! I’m so glad you were able to make these as gifts!
That’s really fun way to make elastic hair ties, I tried it myself but couldn’t make as you showed in pictures.
This is a fun tutorial! I’m making some of these hair ties for “Galentine’s Day”. Thank you for sharing!