It can become increasingly difficult to put on a fabulous birthday party for your child. It seems that each year, they ask for more and more, doesn’t it? Of course, you want to make your kid happy on his or her birthday so you go all-out and throw a big birthday bash. Wow! The price tag on such an event! If you’re like me you look for ways to put on a big production without spending much money at all. That way, there’s a lot more money for the gift itself! If your child’s birthday is coming up, and you’re hoping to find ways to entertain all those kids for little cash, let them make their own party hats. It’s just one part of the party, of course, but it’s a part that the kids will really love!
There are so many ways to make party hats and so many things you can use to make them. Cover a table with newspaper or just an old plastic tablecloth. Place things on the table so that kids can pick and choose the items they want to use to make their own unique hat. Some cheap things you can offer as the basic hat include construction paper twisted into cone shapes, large margarine bowls, paper or plastic plates and bowls and even cardboard boxes.
Put out an assortment of cheap craft supplies so kids can decorate the hat the way they want. Some great things to use include ribbon and bows, scraps of fabric, buttons, sequin, pom-poms or cotton balls, felt or foam shapes, pipe cleaners, soda bottle lids, wiggly eyes, cotton swabs, markers, twine, fake jewels, glitter and similar items. Glue sticks work well to affix most objects to most hats but an adult can be at the table to supervise the use of hot glue, if necessary, depending upon the ages of the kids.
Kids can make one type of hat by simply twisting a piece of construction paper into a cone shape. Cut a hole in a paper or plastic plate and glue or tape the cone over the hole. This witch-type hat doesn’t have to be black and dreary. It can be decorated with rick-rack, colored tape, stickers and more. In the opening at the point of the hat kids can insert a handful of yarn strands, tinsel, ribbon or other flowing objects to make the cone hat into a princess hat.
Cover a margarine bowl with fabric and you’ve got the start of a very impressive, homemade hat. Drape a large circle of cloth over the bowl and tuck the excess inside the bowl. Tape or glue the fabric inside the bowl. Now you can add ribbon, felt pieces, pom-poms and other embellishments. You can make a brim for this hat by cutting a large circle of cardboard. Cut a hole in the middle of the cardboard and set the open side of the bowl over the hole. Glue the bowl to the cardboard. The cardboard can be painted or covered with fabric or paper.
Girls can make tiaras by using construction paper or thin cardboard. Cut something similar to a triangle. The base of the triangle should be long enough to go around the child’s head. Instead of leaving the ends of the base pointed make them a couple of inches wide. The top point of the triangle shouldn’t be too tall. Tape or glue the ends of the triangle together and let the child decorate the tiara with tinsel pipe cleaners, fake jewels, sequin, glitter and similar items.
It doesn’t have to be complicated to make a simple hat from construction paper or thin cardboard. Simply cut a wide piece and wrap it around the child’s head. Tape or glue the circular piece at the ends. Now the kids can decorate the simplistic hat to make it look much more impressive. Glue pipe cleaners to the hat, and wiggly eyes at the ends of the pipe cleaners, to make a silly, whimsical hat. Or, glue cotton balls all the way around the edges to create fluffy-looking borders for it. Make a face on the hat by using wiggly eyes, a soda bottle cap nose and felt or foam mouth. There are no limits to the various designs the kids can make.
No matter what style of hat the kids create they’ll have lots of fun choosing their embellishments and adding them to the basic hat. It doesn’t cost much to feature the hat-making event at the party but the kids will walk away very happy. In addition to having a great time they’ll have a one-of-a-kind creation to wear long after the birthday party is over!
Reference:
- Purchase cheap hat embellishments here: www.orientaltrading.com
