Over the weekend, Jen’s sister wanted to learn how to make a fascinator.  A fascinator is a hat alternative, made popular recently by Kate Middleton, and is generally worn to more formal occasions, like a royal wedding or the Kentucky Derby.  They can vary in size and shape, but the important thing is that they’re fabulous.  We found some great help online, since neither of us are milliners at The Cheap Girl.  Here’s a video that was super-helpful:

So armed with this knowledge, here’s how we did it:

Materials:

• headband
• feathers
• bow/flower
• craft wire
• mesh netting
• hot glue gun and gluesticks
• scissors
• razor knife and cutting surface

Instructions:

1. We found our supplies at our local craft store.  Jen decided to do a Huntress-inspired fascinator, so everything was purple, black and white.

Black headband
Purple and black flower.  This was actually on a barrette, which I was able to pull off, leaving just the flower.  I then used hot glue to glue some scraps of the white mesh on the back.
Feathers. I followed the instructions on the back of the package to doctor up the feathers so they had some fun curls and shape to them.
White mesh. I bought 1/4 yard of material, which wasn’t enough to cover a face. I folded the mesh in half and cut at an angle approximately five inches. I then unfolded the fabric and ran thread through the squares in the diamond pattern on three sides, leaving the longest side open. I then pulled the thread tight to gather the fabric together.

2. Using hot glue, I glued it all together. That’s it! The longest part was curling the feathers.

If you make your own, we’d love to see your photos!