Make this! An easy { & quick} easter hat

Looking for a last minute hair pretty for you {or your favorite girl(s)} to wear on Easter? Look no further. This little fascinator style headpiece is quick, easy and cheap {my 3 favorite qualities in a crafty project!}

I made these hats my girls are wearing to match the dresses I made them to wear to my aunt's birthday {tea} party. They do look splendid on a hair full of curls, don't they? {thank you, foam rollers.}

Ready to make one? One hat will take about 10-20 minutes to make, depending on how you are making your ruffle (by hand or by serger) and is a SUPER DUPER DUPER EASY project.

First, gather your supplies:

A glue gun. I would use a low temp. It dries quicker and and is much less hurty.

A bushel of hydrangea type silk flowers. These are from Joann's and are on sale right now for 50% off. Woot. Woot.

19" of any type of stretchy lace {shown in pic} or FOE or really? just plain elastic, if you have enough hair to cover it up or that's all you have on hand and you are freaking out that Easter is in just a few days...

3 yards x 3 inches wide of soft netting or tulle. You really could use any lightweight or sheer fabric.

A circle piece of felt that measures 2 inches across.

...

Ok, got all that stuff together? 

Then, let's get started, shall  we?

PLUG IN YOUR GLUE GUN RIGHT NOW.

{I always forget to do that when I start a project, get all my stuff together and then d'oh! HATE that I have to wait the 10 minutes or so it takes my gun to heat up. I am so impatient!}

Now, gather your fabric up to a length of approximately 18 inches. It should look something like this.

If you have a serger with adjustable tension, did you know you can gather on it without a ruffling foot? The easiest way is to set the needle tension to 7 or 8. {you might have to go lower, depending on your machine. Sometimes my thread snaps at 8 and then I have to re-thread and go down to 7.}

And the side knobbies? {ummm, yeah, what are those called?} Set those to look like these:

If you are gathering by hand, bless your little heart.

Ok, so when your fabric is gathered, set that aside and grab your felt circle and stretch lace/FOE/elastic.

On the 'wrong' side of your felt, glue both ends of your elastic to form a loop {future headband} overlapping the ends about an inch. I didn't take a pic of this, but glue down the elastic on both sides, all the way to the edge.

Now, take your ruffled fabric and starting at the outter edge, glue ruffle around the circle a bit at a time.

Continue to coil around, gluing gathered fabric to felt in a swirl pattern.

You will eventually get something that looks like this.

Now, pull your hydrangea blooms off of the bush so that they look like this:

Pull away the fluffs of the ruffle and put a whole lotta hot glue {LIKE A REALLY, REALLY BIG MOUND OF IT} in the center. I do love to use a lot of hot glue...

Finally, stick the stems of the flowers, one at a time, into the massive mound of hot glue. Let it dry for a few seconds, and batta bing, batta boom! You've got yourself a cute little hat for Easter. Or a wedding. Or a tea. Or, whatever.... to take the garbage out in?