Make a Simple Hat

There are so many ways to make paper party hats. Here is one that's easy to explain and provides a basic technique from which to improvise.

The first thing is to make the hat band. Cut a strip of packing paper 25 inches long or so by about 4 inches wide . Fold it lengthwise down the middle to make a crease in it.



The next step is to coat the hat band on one side with glue or paste. It really doesn't matter too much whether you use glue or paste. I like paste. White school glue dries fairly clear and is a good choice too. Often it's easier to use a small brush to apply the adhesive rather than bother with the bottle of glue. Or even to apply the glue from the bottle and spread it around with the brush. I use a half inch brush which I cut about half the length of the bristles off. Once you've coated the paper with adhesive lay a sheet of tissue paper along the hat band and fold the other half of the hat band up so the tissues sheet is in the middle.



Join the hat band together in a circle. You want to over lap the joint an inch to an inch and a half. The tissue where the joint is is dry on one side so use a little dab of paste or glue there.











Tie the tissue paper.










Fringe the top.















And paste strips of colorful paper around the outside of the hat band.







The hat can be decorated with colorful pieces of paper, feathers, glitter or other materials. You'll see that the hat band can be cut into shapes to make the hat more crown like. Just make sure you have about two inches straight without cuts so the interior of the hat band will be smooth around the person's head.








Cutting and measuring can be tedious, especially cutting the thin tissue paper. I like to use a knife to cut some of the hat parts. I fold the paper and use the knife to cut it like a person uses a letter opener to open envelopes.

Generally when I make hats like this rather than to use a whole sheet of tissue paper and tie the tissue paper to make the crown of the hat, I use a half sheet of tissue. That is I cut the sheets of tissue lengthwise--so the half sheets are still about 24 inches long. Then I cut a small circle of brown paper and paste the open end of the crown to the paper circle.

A half sheet of tissue also makes a nice pompom. I simply fold the tissue accordion style so that it's about four inches wide and then fold this in half. Using scissors, I cut through the layers of tissue in narrow strips leaving about two inches at the center uncut. Then with a little past attach the pompom to the top of the crown of the hat. It's easier to make nice pompoms this way and it also allows the crown of the hat to be one color and the pompom of a different color.