So, as you may have seen in my earlier post Easter Bonnets Part Un, a few weeks ago, I was fixin up some fascinator style hats the Saturday before Easter (yes, last minute is my middle name). Anyway, so I am sitting there feeling very self-congratulatory about how cute those little hats looked when WHOMP I get an email from Michelle showing off Easter Bonnets made from using leftover coffee filter flowers she made using my tutorial.
Well crap. How was I going to not make some great big kahuna hats like Michelle?
Facinators be darned, it needed to happen!
Before you read anything else, click over to check out Michelle’s hats.
I just love it when this happens — one person puts something out there, then another person takes it in a another direction, then the first person grooves on it all over and again and tosses it back out. If Michelle and were musicians, I think this would make us a jam band.
If you saw last week’s tutorial, this is just a variation on that. Instead of fringing and stapling one color of coffee filter to make chrysanthemum-like flowers, this uses layers of multiple shapes and colors to make peony-like flowers. Once you get an assembly line going, it’s easy to crank out a dozen of these suckers in no time flat.
Materials:
- Hat Base. I am using a sculpture wrapped in a dish cloth to protect it from the hot glue, but a roll of paper towels wrapped in an old T-shirt will work just fine.
- Baseball Hat. You probably have one of these in your closet, or pick one up at a thrift store for 50cents.
- Hot glue.
- Scissors.
- Stapler.
- Pre-dyed coffee filters. Click here for directions , it’s very easy. All you need is food coloring and water. To make the turban below, I used 13 flowers, each made of 7 filters. That’s 91 altogether, plus a few green leaves, so let’s call it an even 100. You can buy 100 filters for a dollar at any grocery store.
Start by cutting off the bill of the baseball hat. If you are left with a ragged edge, or just like the look, trim off the bottom with some green filters cut into leafs shapes. Or use some leaves cut from fabric or taken from a silk plant. Your call.
Using whatever combination you see fit, layer 4-8 filters and staple four times in the formation of a square in the middle of the flower. One by one, pull and pinch each layer of filter toward the middle of the flower. Using the square of staples on the back as your base, draw a circle of hot glue and attach to the hat, starting at the outside perimeter and spiraling toward the center.
There you have it. The flower turban to end all flower turbans! I decided this needed a little ooumph so I added a few red poppies I had sitting in my drawer-o-flowers. And while I was in there, I pulled out a bunch more flowers and attached them to a big floppy beach hat.
Actually, this is the way I made in the flower turban seen in my profile pic and the Matte Stephens portrait. One of my favorite long-time readers, a therapy pig named Stella Dora Von Swineburg, has been asking me how to make this for months now. I know Stella loves a good hat because she keeps a whole Pinterest board devoted to them. Stella, I hope you like this turban because it is now in a box and headed your way!