For right now, I’ll have to settle to a “mock” derby party and watch this iconic event on the television while sipping on a mint julep, eating a piece of my Kentucky Derby Pecan Pie (find recipe here.) …but you can’t have a proper Kentucky Derby watching party without a big, festive derby hat! They got their start at the first race when promoters wanted to attract wealthy visitors by luring them in with the big extravagant hats.
I took a trip to the dollar store and challenged myself to make my own derby hat with a few simple things, so take a look and see how easy it is for you to do the same. Below you will find how to make your own Kentucky Derby Hat at a minimal cost. You can even have a fun “hat making station” set up at the party where guest can create their own before the race. You can also use this idea for the upcoming Mother’s Day, perhaps a ladies tea party would be fun!
Let’s begin!
Here are the three hats I’ll be showing you how I easily made a diy derby hat. Two adult hats (white and black) and one girl’s hat (pink.)
How to make your own Kentucky Derby Hat:
Materials needed:
Note: Even though I took a trip to the dollar store, I had plenty of things in my craft arsenal at home to use, so look around your house and get creative with what you have also. Believe it or not, the dollar store had adult and kids hats in several colors. I picked out one white hat, and one black hat in adult size and a pink one in girls size…because “girls just want to have fun” too!
Hats
Scissors
Glue gun
Ribbon
artificial flowers (I bought two $1 bunches for all three hats)
Optional:
To make the gold horseshoe, I already had some thin cardboard, paper, pen, black marker and Mod Podge glue (regular Elmer’s glue or tape can work also.)
Instructions:
Black Derby Hat
Get an idea of what you want to put on your hat and what you want it to look like. You can place everything first, before gluing.I found this cool “pearl look” ribbon to add to the black hat.I cut off the pearl ribbon to needed length, hot-glued it, then tucked the left-over amount under the existing black ribbon.Next I’ll show you how I made this horseshoe.I printed out a clipart of a horseshoe to cutout and trace on cardboard.…but by all means, if you can freehand draw one, go right on ahead!After cutting out the cardboard horseshoe shape, I cut out a piece of gold-colored craft paper about a 1/2 larger than cardboard shape, all the way around.Then, I got out my handy Mod Podge, that was given to me by a sweet co-worker a few years ago. This stuff is nice to have for fun little crafts!Brush the mod podge on the back of the gold craft paper.Press the glue-side onto the cardboard cutout and trim a little around the edges. Then go all the way around and make snips perpendicular to cardboard. This will make it easier to bend paper neatly around the cutout.Then neatly fold over to other side. If you do not have glue, you could just tape on, don’t sweat it too much.Now, take your $1 bouquet of flowers and pull the flower blooms off the stem that you would like to use.Now, hot glue the flower blooms on in a beautiful arrangement on one side of the hat.…or all over the hat! Put them where you want them, make it crazy…that’s what the Kentucky Derby Hats are all about. You will see elegant to crazy and kookie!This hat would go great with a white or black dress or pantsuit with gold accessories.
White Derby Hat
This white hat came with the white ribbon, and then I added this wide purple ribbon I had leftover from Easter decorating.I couldn’t believe it when I found this pretty mesh ribbon at the dollar store! Talk about going BIG!!Let’s make a huge ribbon on the side:First, I made folds back and forth into a few big rows about 12 inches long, then pinched together in the middle.Then I used some purple present ribbon to tie it together in the middle. You can use thread or any complimenting colored string or ribbon…or I could have used a piece of the wide purple ribbon.Then tie the ribbon, thread or string to the existing ribbon on hat to secure.Pull off flower blooms you want to use and put hot glue on the back and attach in position on hat, near middle of wide mesh ribbon.I found some purple feathers in my craft tote also, so I glued those on to give it some extra pizazz!This purple and white hat would go great with white, black, purple or a mixture as I wore in photos.
Pink Derby Hat
Don’t leave the kiddo’s out on this fun!They might not can sip on real mint juleps, but they can enjoy dressing up and some other party food and fun.I thought this mint green ribbon left over from Easter would go great with this pink hat.So I just looped around and tied tightly around on the side.Then I just hot glued a few flower blooms from the $1 bouquet on the side.…and there you go, a simple, quick, lovely hat for a little girl!
Hope you enjoyed this post about how to make your own DIY Kentucky Derby Hat. It’s amazing what you can do with a few bucks and a little imagination and creativity. Like I said before, these would also be cute for a fun lady’s brunch, tea party or Mother’s Day. If you make some, I would love to see your hats. Find me on Pinterest and post a photo and review. Have fun!
Pictured are my Mint Julep Cupcakes. For the recipe click here.Need derby party invitations?Check out a variety of clever and customizable party invitations for your derby party by visiting the paperlesspost.com. (Shown is just an example of the many derby invitations available on the paperlesspost.com)
