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Come in First Place With This DIY Kentucky Derby Fascinator

Cassidy Miller

Cassidy is a San Francisco-based creative taking each day one donut at a time.

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May 06, 2017

Come in First Place With This DIY Kentucky Derby Fascinator

The Kentucky Derby is right around the corner, and in case you were wondering, it's kind of a big deal. I mean who would pass on an opportunity to dress up, wear a crazy hat, and drink mint juleps, am I right? To me, the most exciting part of the Derby is the fashion. When I started looking into fascinators I was SO excited to make one of my own. They range from super elegant to over-the-top crazy, leaving plenty of room to really get your creative energy flowing and make something up completely from scratch. I walked into the craft store and bought whatever called to me. Along with this fascinator how-to, I'll point out some tips for hosting your very own Derby party!

Materials and Tools:

hat form
felt
tulle
hot glue gun
feathers
artificial flowers
nylon tulle
tiny pom-poms
safety pins

Instructions:

We're going to start out by making the foundation of your fascinator. Begin by hot gluing a piece of felt to the top side of the hat form. Trim the excess felt, leaving 1/2 inch, and attach the felt to the inside of the hat form. Faaaascinating, huh? :)

Next, attach the veil and pom-poms with hot glue. The pom-poms definitely added a lot of character and spunk to the look!

Next up, hot glue the flowers onto the top of the hat form.

To make the tulle fan, fold a rectangle piece of tulle accordion style, then fold in the center and hot glue together.

You can really attach the fans wherever you please — no rhyme or reason, just do what feels right!

Now you're going to make a tulle flower! Tulle galore over here. Start by cutting flowers out of the tulle and fabric. Pinch them together at the center and safety pin all the pieces together. Fluff out the petals and attach them to the hat form.

In come the feathers!

Lastly, attach the hat form and the veil to the headband, trimming the sides of the veil to align with the headband.

Just like that, you're ready for the races.

Feeling lucky in Kentucky!

No Derby party is complete without Mint Juleps. Traditional Mint Juleps are made with bourbon, water, mint simple syrup, and fresh mint. We made these gold swizzle sticks by spray painting mini plastic horses and hot gluing them to the sticks.