How To Make A DIY Elsa Hair Braid With Yarn

Inside: I got creative and made this really easy Elsa hair braid for Ella this year. I’m sharing a step-by-step tutorial for this DIY Elsa braid, perfect for a little girl’s Halloween costume!

This year for Halloween we decided Ella would be Elsa! Why? Because that was the costume in the best condition at Kid to Kid haha! I really wanted her to look the part so I decided to make her a DIY Elsa braid!

How do you do Elsa’s hair?

There are lots of these princess yarn braids on Etsy, but I decided to make my own so I could customize it and also save a little money!

If your daughter is going as Elsa this year for Halloween, this is an easy enough project that you could make her an Elsa hair wig out of yarn in just an afternoon! It’s perfect because you don’t have to know how to braid hair in a really intricate design. With toddlers, trying to do an actual hairstyle can be a challenge. This is how to do an Elsa braid on a child without all that hassle!

Related: The Ultimate List of DIY Family Halloween Costumes

Supplies for the DIY Elsa Braid

• White yarn
• Blue yarn
• Snowflake embellishments
• Scissors
• Tape measure
• Hot glue gun

Related: Try These Blogger-Inspired DIY Family Costumes This Year

Elsa Hairstyle Step by Step Instructions

1. To start, I measured how big my daughter’s head was and estimated how much yarn I would need to make a braid that was long enough. NONE of the tutorials I found online gave any sort of number to use for the length of the yarn. I didn’t want to make an Elsa wig that would be dragging on the floor, but I also wanted it to be long enough that it looked like the Elsa hair from the movie.

Thanks to some trial and error, I have the magic number you need to use! Take the length you want the braid to be and add 15 inches to it. Adding the 15 inches will compensate for how much length is lost by braiding the yarn.

After measuring my daughter’s head, I figured I wanted her braid to be 35 inches long.

2. Once I had that number, I added 15 inches and cut pieces of yarn 50 inches long. I also had no idea how many pieces of yarn to cut, so I just had to guess. I ended up cutting 25 pieces of yarn per section of braid. So you’ll need 75 pieces of yarn total if you want your braid as thick as mine.

3. I cut 5 pieces of yarn at a time and then moved them out of the way. This helped me keep track of how many pieces I had left to cut.

Pro Tip: Once you finish cutting the 5 pieces, make sure they line up evenly at the top with the rest of the pieces to save time straightening them out at the end.

4. After I had 25 pieces of yarn for a section, I tied it at the top with another piece of yarn and started the process over again!

5. I decided I wanted to add some blue into the white braid, so I cut 5 pieces of blue yarn to add to one of the sections. You could also add ribbon or beads or just leave the braid plain white!

6. Once I had my three sections for the Elsa braid. I put all three pieces into a drawer to keep them in place while I braided. When I got to the end of the braid, I used one of my daughter’s elastics to secure it!

7. I took my finished Elsa braid and measured it around my daughter’s head and decided it wasn’t long enough and I didn’t want the blue color to go around her head. Back to the drawing board!

8. I ended up making a crown section to go just around her head that was all white. I cut pieces that were 35 inches long since her head measured 20 inches and decided to give the sections 3o pieces of yarn to make it a little thicker.

9. I repeated all of the steps above to make the new section of the Elsa hair wig.

10. Once I had to two braids, I had to figure out how to attach them together. I measured the crown section around my daughter’s head and used the hot glue gun to attach the part of the braid together to form a circle. I left some space at the end and stuck the first braid in and glued that to the crown section. Then I secured the braids together by gluing the rest of the white braid to itself. I hope that makes sense!

11. The braids were finally attached, but I had lots of loose yarn all of the place. I trimmed the yarn pieces as close as I could to the end of the braids and glued down the ends so the braids wouldn’t come apart.

12. To secure the two braids, even more, I tied a long piece of yarn all around the section I glued to keep it all together. This also helped to tighten some of the bulk from having to glue the braids together.

13. What was left was a pretty unsightly mess of yarn, but it wasn’t anything the snowflakes couldn’t hide! I loved using stickers because I could place them on the braid to see how I wanted them spaced out before gluing. I added lots of snowflakes around the back of the Elsa braid to hide the glue section and down the long part that goes over your shoulder.

The DIY Elsa braid was finally finished!

Ella LOVED Her Cute Elsa Hair Braid!

If I were to do this project again, I would definitely make just one braid that was long enough to go around my daughter’s head instead of two braids that I had to glue together!

To add the blue yarn in, I would tie the pieces to the white yarn halfway down the braid to avoid having any blue yarn on the crown section.

Other than that I think it was a pretty successful project! My daughter loves her Elsa braid and I got lots of compliments on it at our neighborhood Halloween party! Little did they know the snowflakes were covering up my mistakes haha!

Want More?

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