Over the Holidays... (Part 2)

Continuing with our holiday crafting catch-up, I tried my hand at hats for the first time. Hey, they were easier than I thought they'd be, I don't think they turned out half bad! I made kitty hats for the girls. I guess I didn't take a picture of Kaia in hers, but here is Miss Katalin sporting hers.. which possibly looks more like a baby bunny. Or maybe a totoro. Kaia's matches, but I moved the ears down a little bit and made them pointier, so her looks a bit more cat-like.

I then made a couple fox hats for my nephews. The tan fabric is felt, which turned out to be a bit tricky to work in with fleece, the fleece being so stretchy and the felt having no give at all. I think I pulled it off alright, though.

I made an anime-esque cat hat for my little brother, as well. I didn't get a great picture, so I apologize for that. It really falls into the background and is hard to see. I added ear flaps with ties to his.

On a completely different theme, we made some silly party hats for the new year, too! They were super fancy, made with construction paper, ribbons, elastic string, pipe cleaners, and tin foil. Can you get much classier than tin foil?

If you are interested in trying hat creation for yourself, I looked at an example here and based my winter hats off of that pattern, modifying it for size / style. As you can imagine, party hats are very simple and I winged those.

Use sturdy construction paper and cut it into triangles with a rounded bottom.

I curled some gift ribbon and taped it to the inside of the top, rolled the paper into a cone and stapled it along the back. Next, I shaped the pipe cleaners into circles and stapled those on in back, too. They held alright, but I think it would have been better had I taken the time to glue them around the brim. Now punch a hole on each side near the bottom. Take care to place the puncture far enough up that it won't tear out too easily. Knot your elastic string and run it through, from the inside out. Put it back through the second hole from the outside and tie it off. I cut numbers out of tin foil and glued them on the front.

Now party like it's 2011!