Mad Hatter Hat-Kitteh Version..MAKE iT YOURself

THE FAMOUS MAD HATTER HAT

I decided that I wanted to make my own version...

This is

THE MAD KITTEH HAT

Leopard Print...fitting right?!?

This is how I made this hat...

I took an old Holiday Dress Up Hat to use as the actual "Hat" and poster board.

I measured 10" in height on the poster board for the actual top hat portion and cut it...

*later on I realized it was too tall and cut it down to 5 1/2"*

Hot glued and wrapped the poster board around the dome of the hat and taped the ends together

Took a piece of card board and flipped the hat upside down on top of it. I then measured a circle about 2" larger then the neck of the hat. This is going to be the very TOP of the hat. If you notice on the HATTER hat, it V shapes up.

Like so...(green is the bottom of the hat..head insert...cardboard is the top)

Then I HOT GLUED THE TAR out of it to make sure it held!

This is where I failed! I cut the rim off the hat....dunno what I was chinking... so I had to rebuild a whole new rim...TOOK FOR-EV-ER!

After the rim was established I used felt to secure the pieces together and add texture.

Cut down to a small size. I just SLICED it like a ninja and cut like a razor blade..right through the middle, then slid the top over the bottom and secured with a little hot glue.

I used an old crib sheet to cover the hat.

Pull tight, glue, fold...over and over. I covered the whole hat with the sheet.

Took it outside and gave it a quick coat of Brown spray paint. If I had a brown sheet or material, that would have saved this step.

Looks a little questionable ????

Then I used an old sheer Leopard window drape to cover the hat...yet again. The Mad Hatters Hat has a print, so I wanted this hat to have one...but be DIFFERENT.

I am sure the Hatter would approve of Leopard. This time I tried just one large piece of fabric and tuck and glue. I made it way too difficult with the sheet. Live and learn...

A hot glued fabric bunched mess...for now.

He REALLY is MADDDD!

Ok moving on....

wahhh-oops...side tracked by Nate Berkus...

Here we go...I used felt to line the inside of the hat to hide all the ugliness hot glue leaves behind.

To make the hat pins, I used kabob skewers. Spray painted them gold...and dug threw my button stash and found something workable

A little hot glue to the back...

VIOLA! hat pins.....

The Mad Hatters hat has a peacock feather along the sash band...I didn't want a peacock feather. I had a bag full of rainbow colored feathers from my "Bow maker" days...

A piece of felt for the bones of the feather flock

A dab of hot glue and started layering the feathers.

and so on....

Added a animal print scarf around the hat....

FINALLY Finished! If you decide to make a Mad Hatter hat...learn from my mistakes. In the end I love the way it turned out. Totally different from the movie hat, but very similar.

The whole Mad Hatter Costume is complete!

 Check here to see the outfit...

Tootles!

Kitteh

Mad Hatter Costume

No wonder you're late.

Why, this POST is exactly two days slow....

I have been constructing every ones costume for the upcoming
Mad Hatters Tea Party for Duckies 9th birthday.
We are 2 weeks away and its time to get crack-a-lackin!

Today was the day that I CONQUERED the Mad Hatter costume. Which is Duckies costume of course.

This is what I had in store for me....

These costumes ranged from $49.99-$174.00....

totally NOT what I was willing to spend.

I found the pants and blazer at the local Goodwill store.

Total spent $7.00. All the other materials I had on hand.

Lets start with

The Pants

Purple Corduroy pants. I used 1" painters tape to create pinstripes.

Kinda reminds me of those inflatable Velcro jumpsuits

*scratching head*

I made a tacky clothes line do-hickey to hang the pants from...

and pulled out my Silver Spray paint.

This particular project I used the standard Orchard Hardware brand.

Tin Man...? No?

The spray paint dried within SECONDS!

I removed the painters tape....and looky here...

PIN STRIPES!

what what...look at the butt...how awesome are these pockets...ya?
Just think, we can also re-purpose these for Richard Simmons shorty shorts! SCORE!

Ok MOVING On...

The Jacket

For the laced cuff I used some Lace rembrandt that I found at Joanns craft store a while back.

I started by turning the jacket inside out, because I needed to shorten the sleeves a bit. I did this with a simple hot glue gun...

NO SEW!

I added a little extra 1/4" gross grain ribbon to keep the lace from scratching Duckies wrist.

Flip the jacket right side out and VIOLA....

Next...

The Spool Belt

I gathered a handful of rainbow thread colors from my stash.
You can also find small sewing packages in the craft section at your
local Dollar Tree Store. 
I started by cutting about 2 yards of 1/4" ribbon. You could even use leather cord or anything you can string things on. Your choice.
Leaving about 12" on one end, I tied the two pieces of ribbon in a knot. Then added the first spool of thread.

Insert one end of the ribbon on each side of the spool and pull until the spool is snugly lined up with the rest.

And so on and so on until you get this...

There will be a lot of ribbon left over...that is the "belt" factor. So don't cut it. The Hatter wears his belt across his chest...

so you will need the extra length.

So that was the basics to that Hatter costume. 

I can not wait to unvail the whole shabang!

Check back for the next post...the Mad Hatter Hat.

 I will give you a sneak peek of what I am doing...

Not giving you much huh...as of now, the bones of the hat are done.

So check back for that post...

DON'T BE LATE!

Tootles!

Kitteh