Derby Hat Extravaganza

As you know if you have been here before today I went to the Kentucky Derby with my wonderful mother in law! Now for those of you that are fans of the derby or just have generally heard of it, you know its all about the hat. (Seriously, I think you could dress in a feed sack so long as you had a hat on your head!) Well this provided a conundrum for me because I really wanted a fascinator but I had already started this 30x30 challenge. Which if you remember means no shopping! Also fascinators were way to expensive for my tastes. I mean come on lets be realistic its a headband with some tulle and flowers people. So I did what any aspiring Martha Stewart would do and I made one.

As with all other projects I started by trolling pinterest for DIY fascinators. I would love to say that I just knew how to do this right off the bat but alas pinterest came to the rescue. I came across this:

http://atsecondstreet.blogspot.ca/2012/05/tea-attire.html

and this:

http://lessthanperfectlifeofbliss.blogspot.com/2011/05/british-tea-party-part-twothe-hats.html

I then just sort of combined them to make my fascinator. So just in case you are dying to make a fascinator of your own here's how it's done.

Derby Fascinator Tutorial

Materials: 

headband

felt

fabric to create flowers (I just played around with this until it looked like a flower and the way I wanted)

tulle lots of tulle (that may be my beauty pageant roots but you can never have enough tulle)

feathers (no good derby hat is devoid of feathers)

beads 

hot glue gun

any other item you want really

ribbon (optional)

Directions: 

Step 1: Gather your materials and plug in the glue gun. 

Step 2: Take your headband and cover it with ribbon. (this is optional but I did this with mine because I only had a black headband and was going for a gray and coral color scheme.)

Step 3: Now you are going to create the base for your fascinator. Cut two circles out of the felt. One larger and one slightly smaller. (I used a cereal bowl for my template)

Step 4: Glue those circles onto your headband. Smaller circle on top.

Step 5: Now the fun begins. Here's where you decorate your fascinator any ol' way you like. You can copy mine or be super creative and branch out on your own. 

So what do you think? Ever been to the derby? What about a derby party? Well maybe next time you are invited you can just whip up your own fascinator and be super proud when you tell people you made your own hat. (It sounds so much more complicated than it actually is but just don't tell them that.)