Dazzling Christmas Hats

What’s this a belated Christmas post? Erm, yes it is.

Well it is really a craft post in the disguise, you see way back in December the fabulous power-couple Robyn and Georgio held their now annual Christmas cocktails party.

In the lead up to the event photos of hilarious vintage Christmas themed head-dresses were posted on Facebook. Everyone tittered and goaded ‘Oh, let’s all wear a huge decorative tree! la-de-da!’ But the problem is you should never plant a seed of silliness in my group of girlfriends’ heads. Especially when it comes to ridiculous adornments.

So what started as an in-joke become a bit of a competition as to who could out do each other. Secretly formulating designs to shiny, so outrageous, so Christmasy that the holiday spirit would be set alight on the night.

Then Robyn posted this photo of her head-dress progress on Facebook:

Oh yes, we were all taking this very seriously.

Plotting my design I started thinking about coolie hats (the ones that look like up-turned fruit bowls), along with brainstorming materials to create the shape and how to keep it rigid. Not being a milliner or made of money my plans were all on the cheap and easy(ish) side. One thing all the plans did involve however was gold fringing. Lots of it. The only problem was I couldn’t for the life of me find gold metallic plastic foil to make fringing out of. I knew the exact kind of foil I needed, and I saw it every where in every tassel garland ever made but I could not for the life of me find it for sale anywhere.

Enter instagram buddy and gorgeous crafty designer Megan McKean. Megan generously donated a portion of her  metallic plastic foil stash. Being the clever devil she is, she discovered a fantastic substitute for the elusive material – space blankets! It was perfect and oh-so shiny.

When I showed my lovely new prize to SAH he rolled his eyes at me. ‘What?’ said I. ‘I’m a packaging designer. I have access to reams of this kind of plastic foil.’ ‘. . . Oh. Bugger. Can you get me hundreds of metres of gold so I can fringe the house?’ ‘No.’

So I set about cutting out 6 metres of 30mm wide strips, which I then hand snipped fringing into. I then hot glued it to  to my hat base. Which incidentally I had created by appropriating a sun hat I had found in the $2 shop. Recognising the top part of the hat was a wonderful 50s cone shape, I cut off the brim and painted the cone gold (over the original puce pink) before applying the fringing.

It looked mighty fine but it wasn’t quite there, a helpful suggestion from my sister had me trot back up to the $2 shop to buy a clutch of plastic poinsettia’s which I hot glued down one side of the hat. Bam! Fabulous Christmas hat done.

I completed the outfit with my vintage green lamé capri’s and a lamé boob tube, made for me by my sister, and a large Christmas bow. Effectively turning myself into a walking Christmas tree.

Unfortunately due to time and family commitments only a few of us ended actually attending the party in festive hat fashion. But those that were there were sensational. Including Robyn’s (welded) crown of Reindeer heads.

Photograph by Louise Whelan

Photograph by Louise Whelan

Photograph by Louise Whelan

Photograph by Sarah Doyle

As it seems to be the case I quite often forget my camera or when I do I don’t take it out of the case so I don’t document parties these days. This is not always a  bad thing!  I do get carried away chatting and socialising with our group of very interesting friends, but sometimes a few good shots of your hard work in action can make it all the better.

Thankfully other people were snapping away – thank you for donating them to this post.