How to Make a Simple Cocktail Hat

I wasn't sure if this is technically called a "Cocktail Hat", because I wasn't following any rules of fashion when I made this, but for now that's what I'm calling it. It might be a different kind, but I wouldn't know.
Anyways!

You can see it's very simple. I made this hat because I wanted something to wear with a dress that I'm wearing at an English Country Dancing Ball in December. It turned out really cute, so I made a couple more to sell at a craft fair that I'll be doing in 2017.
For this craft, you don't need a ton of stuff.

• An empty cereal box (or a piece of cardboard the same thickness as a cereal box)
• A sheet of felt (in whatever color you choose)
• Tulle (I bought a roll at Michael's- you don't need very much. I have almost the whole roll of tulle left when I'm finished)
• Thin floral wire (I used 30 gauge) 
• Flowers of your choice (You can use whatever kind you want. Keep in mind that it's good to get flowers that have a flat bottom so that they glue easily to the hat)
• Metal Clips (or you can use hat pins or whatever else works. You could even use a headband!)
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Optional: Pearl spray embellishments (I found some from the Wedding section at Michael's)

I got all of these things at Michael's, which makes this craft easier for me because I didn't have to run around to 15 different stores to find the supplies. :)

First, I cut out a medium sized circle in my cardboard (about 4 3/4 inches).

Yes, I'm cutting up my hamster food box to make this craft. Yes, my hamsters are doing fine, thanks for asking.
At this point, I also cut out a circle from my felt that was about 1/2 inch larger than my cardboard circle.

BEFORE I attached my felt onto the cardboard, I cut a slit just to the center of my circle, and I overlapped it to make a little bit of a dome shape. It looks better on my head this way.

 THEN I glue my felt on. You might notice that the felt overlaps into a pucker when I glued it on. I'm not worrying about that, because I'm going to cover it up later. Just be sure to glue it flat.

Then I cut half inch slits all around the hat to glue down. Make the flaps small make things look precise and neat.

Oh look, there's Phil. Hi, Phil. (Who's Phil...?)

After the flaps are all glued down, I cut one more piece of felt the size of my hat to glue underneath and seal everything up. This ensures that no one will ever be able to tell that I made this out of a cereal box. :)

Now that the base is done, it's time to get out the tulle. :)
This part you can do however you want. Holding it with my fingers, I just made three loops with a tail on each end.

Then I secured the loops at the end with wire by wrapping it around several times.There's really no right or wrong way to do this. You just kinda 'do it' and it always ends up looking right. :P Just be sure to secure the ends like this so they stay put.

Then you can kind of fan it out with your fingers to make it look the way you want.

 Now we just glue the wired part flat onto the dome. Be sure to glue it so that we can cover the little pucker of felt that we had.

Now that we have the tulle ready, we can start thinking about how we I want to arrange our flowers. 
I pulled flowers off of this hydrangea to arrange them the way I want them.

Just glue until you're satisfied with the arrangement. :)

If you like, when you're finished you can put some pearl embellishment on it. I put some on a different hat that I made like this, but I kind of liked my blue hat without them, so I just kept it the way it is.

With my pink hat, I put the pearls right at the base part of where the tulle comes out. You could do that if you like.

Now I just gotta think of a good hairstyle to go with it. :)

If you make this, I hope you have fun doing it! It adds quite a statement to MY outfits. :)

Byyeeee!
~Amaris