How to Make Kids' Hats
A great way for kids to display their creativity is to make their own hats. Whether it's pulling out a few markers or dumping some dye in a bucket, there are numerous ways to personalize your hats or caps.
Just as there are numerous ways to design a hat, there are different hats you can make -- there are hats, caps, and even berets to decorate. Just grab your favorite headpiece, and let's start constructing.
Follow the links below to learn how to make your own hats:
Personalized Hats
Add a little pizazz to your hats and create a fashion statement all your own.
Wild and Styled Hats
Show off your creative side with your own designs on these wild hats.
Beautiful Berets
Your friends will be saying, "Merci beaucoup" once you show them how to make these beautiful berets.
Playful Painter's Caps
Mix your favorite tie-dye colors, and dip painter's caps in the dye bath to create fanciful, colorful designs.
Puffy Paint Caps
Celebrate funky flowers and slithery snakes with painter's caps illustrated with puffy paint.
Keep reading to learn how to personalize your hat.
For more creative kids crafts and activities, check out:- Kids Crafts
- Kids Activities
- Wearable Art Crafts
Personalized Hats
Turn old baseball hats or painter's caps into new, stylish personalized hats of your own. The possibilities are endless.
What You'll Need:Old baseball hat or painter's cap (available at paint supply stores)
Scrap of fabric
Scissors
Craft glue
Fabric paints
Paintbrush
Markers
Glitter
Sequins
How to Make Personalized Hats:Step 1: Have an adult cut a circle or square from a scrap of fabric large enough to cover the front emblem of a baseball hat. Glue the fabric over the emblem.
Step 2: Decorate your hat with fabric paints and markers. Make your baseball hat into a fun beach cap. Paint an underwater ocean scene with fish and seaweed. Use the markers to add detail to the picture.
Step 3: Let the paint dry. Glue on glitter and sequins to make the fish sparkle.
Now that you know how to personalize hats, keep reading to learn how to style them.
For more creative kids crafts and activities, check out:- Kids Crafts
- Kids Activities
- Wearable Art Crafts
Wild and Styled Hats
Wild and styled hats are so simple to create. Make a serious hat for parties, a silly hat just for laughs, or a theme hat to accompany a costume.
What You'll Need:Wrapping paper
Scissors
Craft glue
Old paintbrush
Balloon or large ball
Trims such as feathers, ribbons, or rhinestones
How to Make Wild and Styled Hats:Step 1: Cut two big identical circles out of wrapping paper.
Step 2: Mix equal parts of water and glue together. Using an old paintbrush, coat the wrong side of one piece of wrapping paper with glue. Place the other piece, wrong side down, over the glue.
Step 3: Place the paper on your head and form it into a hat shape while the glue is still wet. Once you've shaped the hat, place it over a blown-up balloon or a large ball.
Step 4: Let the hat set overnight. When it's dry, decorate it with feathers, ribbons, glitter, or rhinestones.
Keep reading to learn how to create a French beret.
For more creative kids crafts and activities, check out:- Kids Crafts
- Kids Activities
- Wearable Art Crafts
Beautiful Berets
Instead of simple hats, try your hand at beautiful berets. Your friends will think you flew to France to buy the berets, but you can tell them "Au contraire" -- I made it myself.
What You'll Need (per beret):20-inch circle of felt
1-1/2 feet elastic, 1/4 inch wide
Needle and thread
Safety pin
How to Make Beautiful Berets:Step 1: (Hint: Use a clean garbage can lid as an approximate guide to draw the circle.) Sew a casing about 1/2 inch wide around the edge of the felt, leaving the last one-inch unsewn.
Step 2: Cut a piece of elastic long enough to fit around your head plus one inch. Attach a safety pin to the end of the elastic, and work the safety pin through the casing. Sew the ends of the elastic together, and sew the
one-inch unsewn casing closed.
Step 3: Adjust the felt so it is evenly gathered around the edges. Sew a small loop to the top of the beret, and you're finished. Decorate your new chapeau with fabric paints and glitter.
If you're ready to get your hands wet, keep reading to learn how to tie-dye a cap.
For more creative kids crafts and activities, check out:- Kids Crafts
- Kids Activities
- Wearable Art Crafts
Playful Painter's Caps
Tie-dyeing isn't just for clothes -- dunk white caps in a tie-dye bath and you'll have playful painter's caps that are real works of art.
What You'll Need:White cotton hat
10 rubber bands
4 or 5 gallon bucket
Red or blue fabric dye
Paint stir stick
Paper towels
Scissors
How to Make Playful Painter's Caps:Step 1: Soak your hat in cold water. Remove from water and wring water out. Empty water from bucket.
Wrap a rubber band tightly
Put one hand under the hat and poke up a portion of the hat in the center. Tightly wrap a rubber band around the poke so that about one inch of the hat is gathered above band.
Step 2: Repeat on both sides of rubber-banded section, about three inches to the outside and about three inches above the first banded section. Do two more sections about three inches to the outside and about three inches below the center banded section. Poke up a section in the center front of the hat and wrap a rubber band around the section.
The final four rubber bands will be for the cap's brim.
Crisscross four rubber bands across the brim of the hat, two from left to right and two from right to left.
Step 3: Wearing rubber gloves and with adult help, fill bucket with hot water. Add a packet of dye and mix.
Don't forget to use gloves
Step 4: Put your hat in dye bath. Use a paint stick to push down. After 30 minutes, remove hat from dye bath. Blot the hat with paper towels.
Step 5: Run cold water over hat until water runs clear. Cut rubber bands off. Let air dry.
Keep reading for another perfectly playful painter's cap design.
For more creative kids crafts and activities, check out:- Kids Crafts
- Kids Activities
- Wearable Art Crafts
Puffy Paint Caps
Whether you prefer frilly flowers or slithery snakes, puffy paint caps are a great way to show off your creative side.
What You'll Need:Plain baseball cap
Foam plates
Fabric paints: velveteen-finish white, matte-finish purple (flower); matte- and velveteen-finish green, velveteen-finish red (snake)
Crayons: 1 jumbo, 1 regular
Paper towels
Iron
4 inches neon pink plastic tubing, 3/8 inch diameter
Scissors
Craft glue
Pencil (snake only)
Toothpicks (snake only)
How to Make the Puffy Paint Flower Caps:Step 1: Pour a small amount of the white and purple fabric paint onto separate foam plates. Use the flat end of a jumbo crayon dipped in velveteen-finish white paint to make dots around the hat for the flowers' centers. Add more paint to the crayon as needed.
Use the flat end of the crayon to apply detail.
Wipe off the crayon with a paper towel, and set aside. Make petals by dipping the flat end of a regular crayon into the matte-finish purple paint. Dot seven or eight times around each flower center. Let dry 24 hours.
Step 2: Ask an adult to help you use an iron to puff up the velveteen-finish paint. Set the iron on steam, and hold it one inch above the surface of those areas that were painted with the velveteen-finish paint until the paint puffs up (do not press the iron to the surface; just let the steam do the work). Let dry 20 minutes.
Cut small pieces of plastic tubing and glue them onto the hat for the flowers' centers. Let the glue dry at least four hours before wearing.
How to Make the Puffy Paint Snake Caps:Step 1: Pour red and both kinds of green paint onto separate plates. Use the pencil to draw a squiggly line on the hat where you want the snake's body to be. Dip the regular-size crayon in the matte-finish green paint, and make dots along the pencil line until you reach the head area. Wipe off the crayon with a paper towel. Make three slightly overlapping dots with the jumbo crayon and the velveteen-finish green paint for the head.
Wipe off the crayon. Dip the side edge of a toothpick into the red paint, and apply paint onto the hat near the snake's mouth for the tongue. Use another toothpick dipped in the velveteen-finish green to make a tail. Let dry 24 hours.
Step 2: Repeat steps 3 and 4 of the Flower Caps, this time using the plastic tubing for the snake's eyes.
For more creative kids crafts and activities, check out:- Kids Crafts
- Kids Activities
- Wearable Art Crafts
Beautiful Berets by Laurie Freehafer
Playful Painter's Caps by Christine DeJulio, Janelle Hayes, and Muriel Spencer