You may not know this but I am a huge Eurovision fan! This year it is being held in Liverpool in the UK after Ukraine was unable to host it in their own country. I really wanted those grand finals tickets but unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be… But I am still going to the outdoor village experience at Pier Head, as a consolation prize. Wouldn’t miss it for the world! And who knows when the UK will host it next…

I wanted to make something to commemorate the occasion. Apparently country-themed hair clips are really popular for these events as you would expect! I wanted to avoid buying new materials so I had a look through my storage. Now, over the years, I truly have amassed a large collection of ribbon – satin, organza, patterned, you name it! I organise my stash by type and size to make it easy to look through. Surely I would already have the materials on hand?

Originally I was just going to make something to support the country that I wanted to win (it’s Finland by the way!) and they use the neon green motif a lot. I found some wide organza ribbon that could work, although this makes me wonder why I had this colour to begin with? The joys of having a ribbon stash!

Then I found that I had the perfect colour set for the Ukrainian flag! I’m not the keenest on their entry (although the staging is cool), but I was happy to make a ribbon in support of what should have rightfully been their hosting.

Nowadays you can find a lot of tutorials online for making your own ribbons. Here is an example of a stacked ribbon tutorial! I used this as a base to design my hair clip. I cut out three lengths of dark blue and two longer lengths of yellow. The dark blue bits are varying in length because I was using a single ribbon cutoff from a different project and was working with limited length.

Using hot glue, you can connect the yellow ribbon loops together, although it is fiddly to fold the ribbon where the glue dries sometimes so try to use as little as possible! Then I rearranged the ribbons and tied them up with a small bit of cotton thread. I should colour match the thread really, but it does get covered up at the end if done properly.

I placed the yellow part on top of the dark blue part, and secured everything to an alligator clip with a thinner bit of blue ribbon. One hair clip down!

Now I could have made a Finland flag-themed hair clip (blue and white) as well, but the neon green bolero is so prevalent in all of Finland’s support! It’s a bit more difficult to work with organza ribbon but it can be done. Since it was so delicate, I instead opted to do a single length and do a double-loop bow. Here is a pin on how to do it!

I like to seal the ends of organza ribbon with a dab of PVA glue since a lighter can really ruin the appearance. The best thing about the double-loop method is that you can easily insert the clip into the knot and not have to fuss about with the glue gun!

The neon-green hair clip is a bit larger than my first clip, but then again it’s just like that bolero – oversized!

I will be wearing both ribbons on the day. Okay, it’s a bit of a strange colour combo but with the context of the event it totally works!

Materials needed:

• 1cm blue and yellow satin ribbon, and 0.3cm blue satin ribbon
• 2cm light green organza ribbon
• Alligator hair clips

Tools needed:

• Scissors
• Hot glue gun

Bonus picture: I am at the Eurovision Village! I’m not quite at the front, but I’m sure it’ll be a party later! If you are watching, hope you enjoy it and celebrate the winner!