Tuesday Tutorial – New Year’s Party Hat

These hats are fabulous for celebrating the New Year; if you are ambitious you could have guests making their own, but I see them more as cute decor items than actual hats to wear. I tweaked the Michael’s guide because I couldn’t find the silver flower embellishment they used.

Word to the wise, the hat template used isn’t to scale; I had to make it larger in my photo editor. Most online templates are kid-sized which won’t work for this hat. Once I figured that out, the rest was cake.Here’s the loot all scored at Michael’s – in addition to a stapler, hot glue gun, double-sided tape and adhesive dots. The boa is a 6-footer, so it will make about 3-4 hats, maybe more depending on how tightly you can trim it around the hat.The fan-fold flower is black cardstock, two pieces 2″ by 8 1/2″, accordion-folded a 1/2 inch or so wide. They don’t have to be perfect.Tape the ends together with double-sided tape. Now bend the ends together and staple together to make a loop. Now, then push the center folds together to make the flower, you’ll have to hold it together near the center because it will want to keep popping back out as the loop. That’s where a nice dollop of hot-glue will work to hold it together. Do it on the backside of the flower.Hot-glue the feather collar to the backside of the flower. Now, back to the hat. Since my hats are not for wearing, I just used cardstock without the suggested posterboard reinforcement. It’s still pretty sturdy as it. Trace your template onto your paper, cut out and assemble your hat.

Hot-glue, I repeat, hot-glue the boa on to trim the hat. Do not use glue, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Glue will not work. You must hot-glue.Now, hot-glue the flower combo to the front of the hat. Add your word sticker to the ribbon, trim down and attach to the hat with a couple of your adhesive dots. Voila!