DIY

I'm truly and honestly not the most creative person in the world.  Pinterest puts me to shame.  I'm just a mom trying to keep up with the fast pace of life and make my house somewhat presentable...with the occasional pair of pants draped over the back of a kitchen chair.  Judah loves to go without pants. Go figure.  Anywho, I've done a few DIY projects in my time.  I may have to go historical on you a little because I don't normally blog about them.  But here they are, the good, the bad, and the FAIL.

TOP HATS:

Oh, my lovely, flimsy, unwearable top hats.  I love them.  They make awesome table settings, but that's it.  DON'T WEAR THEM!  I mean, seriously.  I'm not THAT good.  So here's what I did:

1. Choose a largish cardboard box.  A medium-sized moving box will do.  If you have young kids like me, diaper boxes from Amazon are perfect.  And they are free.  BONUS!

2. Trace shapes on the box.  I bought a dollar store flower holding thing and traced that.  You can also use a medium bowl.  Trace one big circle with one much small circle in the middle.  Like the picture. Cut it out along with the hole in the middle.  Here is your rim.

 3. I used the hole I cut out of the middle to make two additional circles for support.  I also cut along one of the box's flaps to get four long pieces.  This will make sense in a minute.  Just get these pieces cut out for your hat skeleton.

4. Now we put them together!  Fold the four long pieces in roughly the same place, about 1/4 from the top.  Glue the four pieces into one of the smaller circles.  You need them positioned at north, south, east, and west.  I used hot glue to make sure it really has staying power. Glue the other circle about 1/4 from the bottom of the cardboard pieces.

5. Place the rim of your hat over a piece of cloth and trace it out.  I don't cut the cloth down to size.  You want it to fold around the rim and up under it.  Glue down your rim cloth onto the rim, tucking it underneath, but don't glue it underneath yet.  You are now going to place the top of the hat into the rim.  Slide it in as far as it will go, then fold those cardboard pieces backwards under the rim and glue them down.  You now have a hat skeleton!  Yay!

6.  In the above picture, I went ahead and put on the upper cloth so you can see it.  I cut it precisely around the bottom, but it doesn't have to be perfect.  A ribbon is going there.  I learned after doing five of them that I don't like cutting the top of the hat off and gluing it back on.  It looks better to fan the material and have one piece of material at the top part.  I just fold my material around to give it a wrinkly look and glue it in place.  Add your ribbon.  This is my Cheshire Cat hat.  Adding detail is totally up to you.  I'll show you pictures of my Cheshire Cat, Queen of Hearts, Alice, and Caterpillar hats.  The White Rabbit hat is still in production.  My friend Kasey is knitting the ears.  Won't that be adorable?!

Detail is SO important, but it doesn't have to be expensive.  I literally went around gathering bits of things from my house for Alice's hat.  My caterpillar hat details are from a $2 grab bag in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby.  Did you know they have material remnants available at Hobby Lobby and Walmart?  You can find material for a good deal at those places.  Each hat has a set of hat pins as well as part of their story.

Cheshire Cat:

Purple boa tail with a ribbon wrapped around it for a stripe

Alice:

Queen of Hearts:

Caterpillar: