Paper Flower & Glitter Party Hat by Carrie Hannegan

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Today, I'm going to make a pink, blue and green party hat!



Here is what you'll need:

1. 1 party hat that you are going to take apart & put back together
2. 1 piece of 8 1/2 x 11 card stock in white
3. White, light blue and magenta crepe paper
4. Watercolors & acrylic paint in light and bright pink
5. Scissors
6. Glue - I use Designer Dries Clear adhesive from Art Institute
7. Hot glue gun
8. Art Institute Glitter - #89 Martini Ultrafine Transparent Glitter
9. Art Institute Glitter - #358 Jungle Green Ultrafine Opaque Glitter
10. Art Institute Glitter - #141 Magnolia Pink Ultrafine Transparent Glitter
11. Art Institute Glitter - Faux Snow glitter flakes
12. Art Institute Glitter - #806 Sonata Small Glass Beads
13. 15 +/- rhinestones
14. Flower petal paper punch
15. Ric rac and ribbon or a thin tinsel

Okay, to start, you'll need to take that party hat, undo it, make it flat and trace it, color side up, on a piece of white card stock. I then painted that party hat template pink. Darker pink on the bottom to a lighter pink on top.



While that paint dries, I took some white tulle and crepe paper and hot glued it on the bottom of the hat. The tulle is unruly, but it's okay to make a mess since the painted template will go over it and hide the mess!



So, I skipped a lot of steps here, but if you'd like to see the missing steps, I made a similar party hat a few weeks ago, click here to see it! So, after I put on the tulle, the crepe paper, fringed up the crepe paper, glued on the pink painted template piece, I hot glued on this pink vintage tinsel.



Now we're going to play with watercolors. First, I'll get the top flower done. I cut out a strip of the white crepe paper. About 4 ft. long. I then accordion folded it and cut scallops out along one side. I then painted it (this makes a mess! But watercolors clean up easily!). I left about 1 1/2' white, then next section I did a light pink and then got progressively darker with the pink by adding red and a hint of purple. I hung this up and let it dry thoroughly.



Here's what it looks like when I was finished. It doesn't have to be even close to perfect. Have fun with it!



While the painted crepe paper is drying, I punched out a bunch of little flower petals. I did as much as an 8 1/2" x 11" white piece of card stock could yield.



I set about 12 petals aside to become leaves. I then painted the rest of the petals with watercolors. Some were super light pink and others were darker pinky-red.



As the petals dry, I started glittering up my leaves. I covered the white petals in glue and dunked them into the glitter and let it dry. I used the #358 Jungle green glitter listed above.



Then, it was time to glitter up the flower petals. About a fifth of the petals got rhinestones in the middle. And some got some the faux snow glitter...



Some got that bright pink #141 Magnolia glitter. The rest got clear #89 Martini glitter.



I then started putting the hat together by gluing the petals and leaves on one by one using the Designer Dries Clear Art Institute glue. Some of the leaves were cut in half, but most were cut into fours.



For the top of the hat, I balled up a piece of magenta crepe paper, a little bit bigger than the size of a marble and hot glued that to a folded piece of pipe cleaner. Then, starting with the darker side of the crepe paper, I glued that to the inside magenta ball. I turned and glued, turned and glued.
I added leaves to my crepe paper flower and hot glued it to the top of the hat with the pipe cleaner going into the little hole at the top of the hat. I also glued on some of those fun small glass beads #806 Sonata in the middle of the flower to give it some fun texture.

And here it is all finished with all the flowers glued on, a little ric rac thrown on and that top flower added, too:








My dog, Nutmeg, was kind enough to model this for us... isn't she adorable?
Here's to hoping you have a LOT to celebrate, thus needed several party hats in the near future ;)! Happy Summer everyone!