Embellished Hat Tutorial

I like hats. But, not just any hat. You won't find me pulling on one of my husbands ball caps on a bad hair day. They've got to be cute hats! These fit the bill (ha!) and are super duper easy to make. You can make both of them in less than an hour!

The Fabric Flower Hat

This hat I adore! I love, love fabric (if I were ever to become a hoarder, that's what I'd hoard. Yards and yards of bright, colorful quilt fabric!). There's a home decor store near me where I first saw a hat like this and I fell in love. Until I saw the price tag, that is. They sell hats like this for $50! Insanity. Seriously. The hat is adorable, but there is no way I can justify spending $50 on a hat. I decided to turn to my fabric stash to make my own. But first, I needed a hat.

Voila! Joann's to the rescue! They had these cute army hats in the fabric arts section. I'd been through that section many times but had never seen these. Turns out, they were hiding in these bins that they have on one of the aisles. They have a picture of the product on the front and you open the bin to get one. Not the greatest idea for merchandising, in my opinion, because I'd never once noticed those bins until a friend pointed them out. So if you don't see them in your Joann's, look for the bins!

To make the fabric flower hat you'll need:

Hat
Fabric scraps (you don't need much; a fat quarter or scraps will work just fine. I used 4 different
prints)
Fabric glue or a hot glue gun
Rhinestones, if you like a little sparkle

First, you're going to cut flower shapes out of your fabric, with the flowers decreasing in size. I drew out a flower shape on a scrap piece of cardstock and then traced it onto my flower with a fabric marking pencil. If you aren't comfortable drawing it by hand, you could use a Cricut machine or find a flower shape online to use as your template.


After you've cut out each flower, I used my fingernails to pull some threads around the edges of each flower to give it a frayed look.

I cut a total of 8 flowers: 2 from each fabric. Now, you'll just stack them on top of each other with the largest on the bottom, smallest on the top. I glued the entire flower together then glued it to my hat using hot glue.


I like rhinestones, so I glued some rhinestones in various locations on the hat. I did a group of rhinestones smack in the center. Or, you could put a button or a large rhinestone flower in the center.

With all the adorable fabrics that are on the market, the possibilities are endless! You could easily make one that would match any outfit. Or, wouldn't this be cute in the colors of your favorite sport team?



The Applique Hat

This hat was the brainstorm of one my BFF's, Carie. She's got a super fabulous blog full of fun things to win, so go visit her at 3 Crazie Monkeys. It's full of fantastic giveaways!

For this hat you need:
Hat
Applique
Hot glue or fabric glue
Rhinestones (optional)

This little gem is what embellishes this hat. The fabric art section of craft stores are full of beauties like this that are intended to spruce up t-shirts. They come in lots of different shapes and colors.

Play around with it to determine placement on the hat. Once you've decided how you want it, simply glue it down. I added a few rhinestones for sparkle because I like to channel my inner Liberace at times.

That's it. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Take that, bad hair days!