Alice Hat

As Cosplay volunteers there is a need for family friendly, recognizable characters. My daughter loves anime and usually cosplays from there but she also comes to events with me and decided she wanted to be Alice in Wonderland. She drew out her own dress design and included a hat. this is how we put her hat together. 

Using basic craft foam you can see I cut angles into a straight rectangle to create a proper shape.

It cannot be a straight line rectangle. so cutting and tucking the lines allowed me to have an arched template to recut the actual upright portion of the hat.  

a CD ended up being the proper diameter for the brim. 

Then cut a smaller circle for the top.  Not sure what I used as a template.

I wanted to make sure it was the topsy turvy shape we wanted so I did a simple tape job and cut down anything that didn't feel right. 

Then it was time to glue. I'm becoming a big fan of E6000

Once the glue was applied I re-taped to hold everything in place while the adhesive set.

Looking about right. I got to this point on my photos and realized I didn't take any shots of applying the fabric. We just used the same fabric as her dress. Cut it a bit larger than the foam pieces and lightly painted Aleene's Flexible, Stretchable Fabric Glue. I applied the top and brim fabric first with cut notches wrapped over the edge. Added a bottom piece as a solid finish. Then, using the same arched template I cut a piece to put a solid, clean finish to the upright. then after all of this I wasn't happy with it. I recut all the pieces, wrapped them all in the fabric THEN glued it all together. it ended up with a MUCH cleaner look.   

I then turned it over to the daughter to put it all together. We had to have a pink feather representing Flamingo Croquet. I got a hold of an old clock face. It had some spacer posts on the back so we added a layer of foam to expand the attachable surface. 

a striped fabric band and a few gears and she was happy with the outcome.

Cute Huh.  It really is simple. I honestly made it up as I went along knowing the hoped for outcome. The nice thing about craft foam is that it's cheap. So play with it, make mistakes, then be proud of yourself for playing and creating.

The dress will be my next post.