Party Hat Makeover!

As you know, Little Peanut is having a Hello Kitty themed birthday.  One day while shopping we picked up some "Kitty" party hats.  When she saw them, she quickly claimed them as her own. They are perfectly fine as is, but they definitely lack pizzazz.  Did I really just use that word?  I did.  In my quest to make all things cute and girly, I decided to give Little Peanut's party hat a makeover. 

I'm going to show you how you can go from this:

To this:

There are a million things I could have done to this hat and I've seen a lot fancier, but I used what I had on hand to make it a little more "boutique."  You will need:

• a spool of tulle (you won't use the whole thing)
• ruffly ribbon (I got mine at Hobby Lobby)
• a party hat
• hot glue

1. I started off by making the tulle poof at the top.  Now, before you think I am some magical genius with the tulle, I must admit that I used a tutorial to make that ball of fluffiness.  I'm good with tulle, as you will see in coming posts, but I've never attempted a ball of fluff before.  So, to make the poof I used this tutorial but modified it by wrapping my tulle around a piece of cardboard that measured 5 x 7 inches (she used a composition book as she was making larger ones).

Once the poof (or pom, or whatever you want to call it) was finished, I snipped off the tip of the hat and covered it with hot glue.  I placed the poof onto the glue and held it here until it set.  That thing is going nowhere people.

2. On to the ruffle. I used a double ruffle ribbon that looked like this:

I couldn't use it as is because it was too wide and would have covered Hello Kitty.  So, I folded the bottom ruffle up to meet the top ruffle and sewed it down to create a tighter looking double ruffle. 

 Yes, I'm a bit pin crazy, but I didn't want it to shift around on me.

I then hot glued the new ruffle to the bottom of the hat, which (unfortunately) I did not take any pictures of.  I used the square border at the bottom of the hat as my guide.  I simply glued in sections and carefully lined the straight side of my ruffle up with the top line of the hat border.  I started at the back of the hat so that it would end at the back. 

There you have it, a very simple, yet uber chic, party hat makeover!  Just one more way to make your little one's day a little less ordinary.