How To Make & Repair Ball Hair Bands (aka Ballies)

Hair ballies, ball hair bands, whatever you call them, these are the hair bands I loved in childhood.  All 3 of us girls wore ponytails and braids with these growing up.  They were so much easier to use, prettier and more comfortable than plain elastic hairbands and they always stayed in place.  I love using them on my own very thick-haired daughter now.  

The challenge is finding them.  When I was a kid every drug store had big packages with lots of colors and sizes available.  It's taken me some serious online & beauty supply store searching to find any the past couple of years and the selection & quality has been pretty limited.  The few I'd found were pretty wimpy and fall apart quickly.

I grew tired of having the elastic stretch out like this:

Or having them just come apart after a couple of months of wear.  The ones I had as a kid lasted for decades, but the ones today don't make it past a few months!

I figured there HAD to be a way to reuse the beads to make new ones and came up with this technique.  After months of using them, I can say my DIY'd hair ballies really hold up well - way better than the factory made versions. 

And I also figured out how to make the perfect hair ballies from scratch, using silicone beads.  These are perfectly sized, really durable and can be made in tons of colors.  They're the same kind that I used to make my silicone baby teethers.  

I used the 19mm size since we wanted to make hair bands that were for "big girl" ponytails, but the smaller 12 or 15mm would be ideal for smaller size hair bands. 

It's also very easy so anyone can do it.  I was able to make a bunch in all sorts of colors to match my daughter's outfits:

Now I'm sharing how to do it!

Materials:
- 2mm Elastic Cord (found in most craft stores)
- Plastic balls from hair bands or silicone beads
- Ruler
- Scissors

Cut a piece of elastic cord that's 12 inches long (25.4mm):

String on two beads and arrange them so the balls are 4 inches apart.  Cross the open ends of the elastic.  Fold the top strand of the elastic over the lower end and bring it down under the middle of the other side.

It helps to weigh down the balls or have someone hold them in place to keep things from shifting around.  It will look like this:

Bring the open ends upward and tie in a basic knot.

Knot again, pulling very tightly.

Snip the law ends close to the knot and the band is done. 

It literally takes less than a minute to make one, so you can make a bunch in no time.  Bring on the ponytails!