A hat

So, Christmas Carol is only a few short days away! Six days, to be exact.{Let's pause while the author goes off by herself and happy dances to "Party in the USA"}

O.K. I'm back. Anywho, so the hat that the theatre provided for me was, well, atrocious. To put it lightly. It had a purple sparkly pointsetta, for crying out loud!!!!! So, knowing me, the only thing to do was to make my own!!!! And, to my utter surprise, it WORKED!!!!{Can I get a woot, woot?!....Andybody?...........Bueler?} But, back on track.........I took TONS of pictures, and decided to make a picture tutorial as a way to show my hat, AND, you'll get to make one, too!! How SWEET is that?!?!?!

You ready to get started? Well, O.K. then! {If you don't care about making an 1840's bonnet, and just want to see the finished product, scroll down to the end. But why would you want to do that?}

Supplies:
Straw Hat
Ribbon{At least enough to tie around your neck}
Hot glue gun
~optional~
Trim
Fabric

This is the pretty trim I used

We are attempting to achieve this general design.

Step 1: Draw the desired shape onto the outside of your hat. Then cut.
{tip: put the hat on your head, figure out where your ears are with it on, and start your line from there}

Step 2: Now, determine how big you want your brim to be, and then cut it down to size. {My brim is slightly smaller than I would probably have made it otherwise, but, because I'll be on stage, I don't want it to shadow my face.}

Your hat should look something like this, if you have followed the steps up until now.

Step 3: optional Cover your hat with some kind of fabric. I used red velvet, but it really doesn't matter what kind you use. Hot glue your fabric in place.

Step 4: Optional Hot glue trim around the head part of your hat, or wherever you want it. {Another good place is on the edge.}

Step 5: Optional Make 8 little bows out of your ribbon, leaving enough for the fastening ribbon around your neck. Hot glue six of them around the inside rim of your hat.
Now, if you want your hat to look like mine, you're going to need roughly 3 yards of ribbon{length varies on amount of bows/size of hat}

Step 6: Optional Take the last two little bows, and hot glue them in the outside corners of your hat. {They should hid the ends of your trim, if you put any on}

Step 7: Take your remaining ribbon and cut it into two even strips. Then, hot glue the ends so that they won't fray. Sew them to the edge of your bonnet, or hot glue them, if you don't sew.

And voila! You have a SUPER cute 1840's bonnet!!!!!! And you made it all yourself!!!!

Experiment with different shapes of straw hats, or styles of bonnets, and send me the pictures, or links to your blog posts about them! I would simply LOVE to see your creativity!!!

Happy Saturday!

~Erin