A couple years ago, I made the first “Eternal Love” hat as a wedding gift for a my lovely friend, Amanda.Cleaning out my crafting stuff I came across these two larger skulls and I was inspired all over again. ❤
First I made a worbla base, then I covered it in white felt and added pearl trim.
If you look closely you can see I started with the base attached to a headband, but I changed my mind later .
I used epoxy for metal, plastic and fabric to do all the heavy-duty adhesive business. Here’s some progress during construction:
Then I added a tulle and feather spray. Using a needle and thread, I gathered tulle then hot glued the bunches to cover my base in a dreamy cloud of tulle.
I used cut out pieces of lace to cover unsightly seams in the fake skulls.
The last bit was to make a birdcage veil and attach alligator clips to hold the hat securely on a head. Again, I used epoxy adhesive for the strongest permanent hold. Stinky but effective.
And here’s the finished hat! ❤
I embellished with rhinestone brooches and pearls I enhanced with individual rhinestones.
And of course, those are real working heart lockets:
This gothic batwing cocktail hat is one of my all-time favorites! I used a combo of black craft paint and clear acrylic spray paint on worbla to achieve a very bat-like texture on the wing. Sadly, this is the best full photo I took before I shipped the hat to it’s new owner.
I started by sculpting my pieces in worbla.
Then I painted the underside black and covered the cap piece first with felt and then with a swiss dot tulle. This left an ugly edge inside which I later covered with black rickrack.
Once everything was painted and/or covered, I assembled all my pieces and some embellishments including rhinestones and beaded chains.
Using hot glue and tweezers I (painstakingly) applied every tiny rhinestone after attaching the wing to my cap. Tedious but worth it! ❤
I finished it up with a spray of swiss dot mesh behind the wing. Seriously, I loved this cocktail so much it was difficult to send it away to its new owner!
MATERIALS USED:
worbla – black felt – birdcage netting – black ribbon – wooden skewer – black ribbon – gold liquid leaf
alligator hair clips – craft paint: black, red, yellow, white, asst. blues
TOOLS USED:
heat gun – hot glue gun – needle and thread – scissors
Cut my shapes out of worbla. Used the heat gun to form the flat circles into rounded caps and curve the mockingjay emblems to the caps.
Painted my mockingjay emblems referencing each of the novel covers.
Covered caps in black felt. Also painted the inside with black craft paint.
Cut the corners off apprx. 18″ of netting. Used a running stitch clockwise from corner A to corner B and gathered to form a birdcage veil.
Used hot glue to assemble: Attach the mockingjay emblems to the felt caps, then attached the birdcage veil underneath and used ribbon to cover the edges, then attached alligator clips to either side.
Note: You can get plain alligator clips- I just happened to have these ones, which are meant for hair accessories that can also be worn as pins, left over from another project.
Hunger Games Fascinator Cocktail Hat
Catching Fire Fascinator Cocktail Hat
Mockingjay Fascinator Cocktail Hat
A gift for my very good friend, Amanda, the “Eternal Love” cocktail hat is one of my favorite hats I’ve ever made. She especially appreciated the tongue-in-cheek name!
My favorite thing about this hat is the way the skull “lovers” contrast against the elegant mix of white tulle, silver sparkle tulle and vintage lace.
Although, I am a Marvel girl at heart- Batman was my first introduction to comic books and he’ll always be my first love! 🙂
I had so much fun making and wearing this fancy Batman hat inspired by the modern Nolan bat symbol. Now I just need everyone to start throwing more fancy dress Batman parties so I have a place to wear it, lol!
The Lego Princess Unikitty hat is one of my favorite (and most tedious) millinery craft projects.
I’ve worn this hat for two cosplays, first as Punk Princess Unikitty to Wondercon 2014 and then as a Gothic Lolita Unikitty to Comikaze 2014.
Since Wondercon so many people have asked to buy this hat or commission a copy…but I just can’t do it. It’s my baby! With this handy tutorial you can embark on your own Lego Unikitty hat adventure. 🙂
Thor may be my favorite superhero to see shirtless, but everybody loves a bad boy. 😉
After seeing a lot of “Lady Lokis” channeling my favorite villain/ sometimes anti-hero into some pretty stunning cosplay…I was inspired to make this Loki fascinator hat.
I ❤ MINIONS SO HARD!!!
I really do love the Minions from Despicable Me. Obsessed would not be an understatement, so I just had to make a Minion themed hat.
Here is some of the fun I had making it from scratch:
This is a pretty involved DIY project that takes at least 2-3 days to complete mostly because you have to let papier-mâché dry- ugh!!). I suggest setting aside a weekend to tackle it depending on how quickly you paint. So strap in and be ready to get messy.
On top of that, I also had to go back to my original design and make some major changes to improve stability!
I have made waaaaay too many papier-mâché projects in the last year. Believe me, if you don’t think it through, it can be a bitch- if you’ll pardon my French. 🙂 My Papier-Mâché Tutorial will help you avoid some large messes and mistakes I made along the way. ❤
I used cardboard to build the shapes for the head and ears, poster board for the horn, and craft foam to build the round lego gasket piece that attaches the horn to the head.
To make the horn, I rolled up poster board until I got the cone shape I wanted.
If I could start over and do things differently, I would make sure that the width of the face block (from front to back) was as wide as my head so I could just cut a hole in the bottom, stick it straight on my head and be done…
…but I didn’t think of that until it was too late so here are the actual dimensions of the hat I made:
Round lego gasket: diameter 3.25″ – Horn height: 9″
Cover each INDIVIDUAL SHAPE in papier-mâché except for the foam gasket piece.
Check out this article for detailed papier-mâché instructions.
After my papier-mâché horn was dry I wrapped it in masking tape to give it spiral ridges:
Once your individual papier-mâché pieces are totally dry, cover them evenly with 2-3 coats of white spray primer. (Whatever it takes so no newsprint shows through.)
When using spray paint it’s best to apply one light coat at a time, letting them dry to the touch in between.
This is where things start to get tricky. You will need to be able to sketch out your Unikitty face on your headpiece so you can paint it.
I sketched my face by hand, but you could also find an image online and then blow it up to the size of your hat.
When I was happy with the face, I folded it in half and chose the best side to be my template for tracing.
Paint all your shapes the appropriate colors, and then fill in your face sketch.
Sounds pretty simple, but I have a few tips for you:
When your paint is totally dry, apply 4-5 coats of Rustoleum Crystal Clear Acrylic to really make your hat look like a plastic lego piece.
REMEMBER: When using spray paint it’s best to apply one light coat at a time, letting them dry to the touch in between.
Congratulations! You have a giant Unikitty head…but not yet a hat. Let everything dry and cure for 24 hours before moving moving on to the next step.
As previously mentioned, if I could start over and do things differently, I would make sure that the width of the face block (from front to back) was as wide as my head so I could just cut a hole in the bottom, stick it straight on my head and be done…
… but that is not what happened.
When I debuted my Punk Princess Unikitty cosplay at Wondercon 2014, I did cut a hole in the bottom so the block was somewhat contoured to my head.
I ended up attaching the Unikitty head to a thin little headband because my hair wouldn’t have covered much more and I wanted the illusion of the block just poised on my head.
It worked JUST OKAY.
I had to stand perfectly straight and not turn my head too fast or it would fall off… just how you want to be at a con all day, right? 
Luckily I used to train in ballet, so that was helpful but a few hours into Wondercon and my neck was killing me!
Here is what the janky headband rig looked like:
Seriously it was so bad, lol!
When I made the Unikitty hat, I never intended to write a tutorial… hence the extreme lack of step by step photos (sorry).
A special thank you goes out to Cindy A. for inspiring this tutorial. As the first person to ask for details, my emails to her forced helped me to organize my thoughts. 🙂 Then Cindy and Katherine made AMAZING Unikitty and Angry Unikitty hats of their own!
Using the wig for a snug fit has worked like a charm. ❤
