Handmade Fabric Birthday Party Hat (Photo Prop)

The plans are in place. Well… almost in place. 🙂

Last week we decided it was about time to start planning Piper’s first birthday. It started with having a few friends over to the house, then we talked about a soft play adventure, and now there is another plan on the cards. We will make our minds up eventually.

One thing i knew for sure was that i wanted to make Pi a party hat. I spied this fabulous hat on pinterest, isn’t it beautiful!? It inspired me to pull out the fabric and get crafty! {Click on the photo to visit the etsy page where there are other lovely things to drool over!}

After a few chewed pencils and a little bit of sketching i set to work. Once I started I was on a roll, it only took two short evenings from start to finish.

So…What do ya think?

So, as usual, i was making it up as i went along 🙂 To begin i drew a semicircle onto a piece of paper, curled it to make a cone and trimmed it a little. I drew around the template to cut out a piece of interfacing to use as the base of the hat to make it sturdy. Then i stuck the interfacing to fabric using spray adhesive. This held the fabric in place to allow me to cut it out and sew around the edges. {note to self: this worked really well. Definitely will be doing that again}

For the pretty felt panel I used spray mount to stick felt to paper then ran this through the cuttlebug using a die to cut out the shape. This was really easy. It didn’t cut the whole way around but a few snips of the scissors and it was fine. I used a zig-zag stitch to sew the edges to create definition and to ensure it wouldn’t fluff away/fray. I did the same with the number one (hand cut).

To make the trim i cut strips of green polka fabric and used the machine to make a long straight stitch up the middle, then pulled the thread to ruche the fabric. It was looking a bit bare so i added some tulle (everything looks prettier with tulle!). I had to hand sew the ruche on because i had already sewn the hat into a cone shape. Next time i’ll definitely wait and do everything on the machine first! (sewing through all they fabric and the interfacing was a MISSION!).

For the top i looked in my stash for pom poms but i think that must be the one thing i haven’t got, but i salvaged some of that green fabric and made a little fabric poof pom pom by gathering circles together. To finish, I added a little cord for Piper’s chin but in hind sight i think i might replace it with light elastic.

We took some photos of the princess in her hat to use on the party invites. She looked adorable, but the hat kept slipping, so elastic is definitely the way to go. I’ll share the party invites soon.

Thanks for popping by, and a special mention goes out to Ellen Mandriss who liked the facebook page this week. Thanks for your support Ellen. ♥