Hey everyone, the pre-Christmas season is in full swing, and today I have brought you a great embroidery idea for the Christmas season: Together we embroider cute snow globe hair clips that are sure to brighten up more than just children’s eyes. This is the eighth door of the Advent Calendar on the BERNINA Blog.

I’m Stephi from the label Frollein Tausendschön and my passion is all about sewing, embroidery and plotting. Feel free to visit me on instagram.com/frollein_tausendschoen or on my YouTube channel. Today we will create some real head-turners, as the hair clips come with a touch of glamor thanks to a special embroidery foil. They are embroidered ITH, i.e. completely in the hoop. And because they are so easy to make, the hair clips are also a lovely little gift idea for the Secret Santa bag or as a souvenir for the little ones at the Advent coffee party. And let’s be honest: The snowmen will not only find a place in my daughter’s hairstyle on Christmas Eve, but also in mine – they are just too cute …

ITH freebie embroidery file and instructions for snow globe hair clips

Snowmen and snow globes are an indispensable part of the winter and the Christmas season. Now we let our embroidery machine create great hair clips with these popular designs and don’t have much to do apart from a few color and hoop changes. The embroidery machine does most of the work.

If you like, you can use the special embroidery foil offered by my blogger colleague Kasia to give the snow globes a special touch. The embroidery file is specially digitized for the foil so that it can develop its shine. If you wish to work without the embroidery foil, you should definitely choose a matching color for your embroidery felt as it may show through a little.

You can find the freebie for the ITH hair clips, consisting of two files, at the very end of this post.

Embroidering ITH snow globe hair clips – material supplies:

You won’t need much for the ITH snow globe hair clips: a few scraps of embroidery felt, tear-away stabilizer, some vinyl and matching thread. You can get plain metal hair clips at the drugstore. They will disappear later in the felt cover ( imitation leather is also an alternative here). I will link you to the embroidery foil in the materials list. With appropriately prepared embroidery files, it creates an incredibly beautiful metallic effect!

For today’s project you will need:

• Embroidery felt, imitation leather or similar (not fraying and not elastic) approx. 30 x 15 cm
• Tear-away stabilizer
• Embroidery thread in different colors (I use Polysheen by Mettler)
• Vinyl
• Embroidery foil (you can get it, for example, here at Kasia’s store)
• Hair clips
• optional: Glitter powde

ITH snow globe hair clips: Preparation of the embroidery hoop and the machine

I stitch the embroidery on my BERNINA 570 QE in the medium embroidery hoop with the size 10×13 cm. Hair clips always look good in pairs, so perhaps it’s best to embroider the file directly twice. I also use the HTTBC bobbin case for ideal thread tension.

HTTBC bobbin case

The CB Hook is one of the four BERNINA hook systems. You can find out which machines require CB-hook bobbins and bobbin cases.

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BERNINA 570 QE (NEW)

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First download the files (there are two, one for the snow globes, the other for the sleeves) to your computer and unzip the ZIP file using the right mouse button -> unzip. Load the unzipped folder onto the embroidery machine via your desired device. First open the snow globe file on the desktop.

We are now preparing the embroidery hoop. First, hoop the stabilizer,the embroidery felt and the special effect embroidery foil together tightly in your hoop.

ITH snow globe hair clips: now it’s time to embroider

Attach the hoop to the machine and start the first sequence. Start by embroidering the circle of the snow globe.

Afterwards, the background of the snow globe is embroidered. The effect of the special foil, which creates a great metallic look, can already be seen now. If you do not use this, your embroidery felt may show through a little because the file was digitized especially for this foil.

Then embroider the snowman’s body and the details of the snowman. The color changes are determined by the machine.

Subsequently, remove the hoop from the machine, but leave the fabrics hooped in place!
You can add a little glitter powder, glitter stars or similar to the center of the embroidery if you like – less is more here, we just want to create a slight snow globe effect.

Next, you will need a piece of vinyl. Remember to remove the backing paper.

ITH snow globe hair clips: Completing the snow globe

Place the vinyl over the embroidery and attach the hoop to the machine again.

Now embroider the next sequence on the machine. The outline and the base of the snow globe are stitched here. Once this is done, remove the hoop from the machine again. 

You will now need a piece of embroidery felt to cover the embroidery.

Place the piece of embroidery felt under the embroidery hoop and fix it with some Wonder Tape if necessary to prevent it from slipping.

Attach the hoop again and embroider the last sequence. In this step, the top and bottom parts are connected and you obtain a clean back for your ITH snow globe hair clips.

At this point, you can remove the hoop from the machine and remove the fabric from the hoop. You can simply tear away the special effect embroidery foil. I embroidered two snow globes straight away, as they fit perfectly in the hoop.

Next, cut the vinyl back just close along the edge of the embroidery. This works best with a pair of embroidery or appliqué scissors. Be careful not to cut into the embroidery. You can trim the embroidery felt about 2 mm away from the embroidery.

ITH snow globe hair clips: Embroidering the hair clip cover

Great! The snow globe is complete. Now we embroider covers for the metal clips using embroidery felt.

To do this, open the second embroidery file for the ITH hair clip covers on your machine. Here, too, it makes sense to embroider two covers at once.

Hoop the embroidery felt in your embroidery hoop.

Attach the hoop to the machine and embroider the first sequence – the placement line.

Next, place a second piece of embroidery felt over the sequence you have just embroidered and start the machine again.

Now embroider the next sequence.

You can now remove the hoop from the machine and take out the fabric.

Cut out the covers at a distance of approx. 2 mm from the embroidered outline. I use pinking shears to do this.

ITH snow globe hair clips: Finishing the hair clips

Now you need metal hair clips, which you can get at any drugstore.

Place the metal clip on the back side of the hair clip cover and get hold of a marker pen. Mark the position of the screws of the metal clips with a dot.

Clip the back of the hair clip cover between the dots. CAUTION: Only the bottom side is cut!

Now you can press open the metal clips and push them through the opening into the hair clip cover.

Almost there! The ITH snow globe hair clips will soon be ready. Finally, you need to connect the snow globes to the hair clip covers. This works with either a few invisible hand stitches or a few drops of hot glue.

Downloading the embroidery file freebies

Now I’ll provide you with the two embroidery files to download.

Important: First download the file to your computer and unzip the ZIP file. This is how you get access to the individual machine formats. With some machines it is necessary to also transfer the .inf file to the embroidery machine.

download_freebie_snow globe hair clips (Zip File)

download_freebie_hair clips_cover (Zip File)