Thursday, November 1, 2012

Witch Doctor Hat Tutorial

 

The Witch Doctor hat is made out of tape, both clear packaging tape and duct tape. I already had a hat that was a little small on Nick. This was perfect, because I just made the new hat on top of the smaller one; which made it big enough to fit his head. Originally I never planned on covering the hat in fabric, I was just doing to make a duct tape hat. I didn't want to use the duct tape for the inside of the hat, because the edges of the tape are always really sticky. That's why I used the clear tape first. The clear tape worked great and held its shape.  So if your planning on making a hat and not covering it in fabric the clear tape works great for the inside! Thanks for checking out my blog and I hope you enjoy reading my hat making process.


       I started with the brim of the hat, this part was kind of tricky. I took the clear packaging tape sticky side UP and started to cover the brim, over lap the pieces a little so they have something to stick to. Once the brim was totally covered with a layer of face up tape, face down tape was applied 3-4 layers thick all the way around. (I did it this way so I could remove the tape hat easily without it sticking to the original hat.) I made sure to off set the tape each time and lay it down in different directions to help strengthen the hat. I then added A layer of duck tape over all of the clear tape. The duct tape is used to make the hat strong and rigid. The clear tape just wasn't cutting it. It wasn't getting as stiff as I wanted. I ended up adding 2-3 layers of duct tape. I applied the tape in the same direction I wanted the hat to curve, I just off set it a little each time. 

At this point I took the brim off, to make sure it could be easily removed from the hat before continuing. I took this time to make the outer edge look nice and neat, by trimming it with a pair of scissors. I placed the brim back on the hat and repeat the same process of adding layers of tape,  for the rest of the hat. I only needed 1-2 layers of duct tape, before the hat was as strong as I wanted. 

     The type of hat I was going for is wider on the top then the bottom. I cut out two circular piece of card board to glue to the top of the hat once the fabric was attached to it to achieve the shape I wanted. I didn't take any pictures when I was covering the hat with fabric. Below is a link to the tutorial i used to help me cover the hat. It's an amazing blog with tons of cool projects. 
Hat covering tutorial  
Whimsical hats by 102 Wicked things to do 

 http://mizerella.blogspot.com/2012/07/32-whimsical-hats.html


       This was my first time covering a hat in fabric and my seams were very bad, but it was really coming together and starting to look like a real hat. It was time to hide all the mistakes and add embellishments! The bone border was added to hide all of the terrible seams. The bones were little leg bones I pulled off of this awesome skeleton garland I found at the dollar store. I made more accessories with those little bones. I'll link them at the bottom. I found a piece of red fabric tied it around the hat and glued a rubber bat to the front and the hat was finished. It was by no means perfect, but it was perfect for us and what we needed it for. 
   


Thanks again for checking out my blog. The links to the witch doctors other accessories are listed below along with the fabric tutorial.
    

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