Teeny Tiny Birthday Hats

I was putting together a first birthday gift the other day when Ellie insisted that we include a birthday hat in the box.  That got me thinking...and I came up with this!  

It's a little tiny birthday hat made of fabric and felt...and attached to a regular hair clip. We both kind of love it, and Ellie's already insisting that I make her one for her next birthday.    

Would you like to make your own?  You can throw one of these together in an hour or less.  Keep reading for the full tutorial:

What you'll need:

Fusible fleece

Lightweight cotton fabric for outside of birthday hat

polyfil

embroidery floss

lace for embellishments

small piece of felt for number and hat base

2 pom poms for the top

a hair clip

scissors, needle, hot glue gun (optional)

1.  Alright, let's get started.  Start by cutting out the hat template (at the bottom of this post) from your hat fabric and fusible fleece. Also cut out the circle base out of felt and set aside.  Make sure that you pay attention to the the right sides of both the fabric and the fusible fleece, so that they match up correctly.  You want to make sure that the side of the fusible fleece with adhesive is matched to the "wrong" side of your fabric (in other words, sandwich them together).

2.  Fuse the layers together.

3. I attached the felt number one with just some embroidery floss.

4. I sewed the two sides together with a simple running stitch.

It looked like this when I finished sewing the two sides together.

5.  I hot glued lace around the edge of the felt base:

6.  Then I glue'd the pom poms to the top. I put one on each side, with a little glue in the middle to make the two pom poms attach to each other.

When I was done it looked like one single pom pom:

7.  Now it's time to stuff your hat with polyfil:

8. Then sew your hat to your base.  I did this quickly, but you could totally make this look better with more careful stitching.

Tada!  All finished up!

9.  One last thing!  All you have to do is add your clip.  You can see my stitches in white:

Ellie was so excited to try it on.  I think we'll need a "4" version in a little less than a year.  What do you think?  Fun, right?

And as promised, here's the template for the hat.  I printed this guide out on 8.5 x 11 inch paper.  You can enlarge/reduce the template as desired to make smaller or larger hats.  

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  Do you follow my blog already?  Yes, awesome!!!  If not,  please consider following this blog!  I'm really trying to build my followers via email and on facebook, pinterest, twitter, and instagram.