Is life starting to feel a little bit ordinary?
The same routine, day after day?
Well, you can change all that.
Make a mini top hat, and wear it to work.
Now, that's anything but... ordinary.
To make this top hat, you will need-
craft foam, hairdryer, a pattern, contact cement, rubber gloves, scissors, a sharp knife, spoon, 2 part epoxy,
and a monkey
Carefully cut out the pattern, just on the outside of the black line
and then trace the pattern on to the foam,
making sure to mark the centre line of the brim
and top, as well as marking the top on the ten smaller pattern pieces.
Now, cut the foam , keeping the knife blade in the centre of the line.
There isn't much room for error
So it's important that you cut and mark accurately
Before I start glueing this time, I have gotten a little smarter
and I'm putting gloves on.
Keeps that nasty business off your fingers
and we don't like nasty business.
Grab your contact cement and apply it to the long edge
of the rectangular-ish pieces.
When the contact cement is no longer tacky,
push the pieces together
starting by lining up both ends and ending in the centre.
Repeat with all ten pieces
until it looks a little bit like
a lampshade
a mini lampshade
Now, with your thumbs, stretch along each glue line
from the centre out to the edges.
This is going to round off those panels.
Alright, that's done
now, grab a spoon with a nice flat handle
and use that to make a groove
all around the brim of the hat.
We're going to use this groove
to create a nice turned over edge
on thebrim
go over it a couple of times
to make sure that groove is really deep.
Glue it up,
and once that glue is no longer tacky,
you can fold it over.
It can be really tricky to get a nice even brim,
so make sure you've practiced on some scrap
before you do it on your real hat.
Great! Now you can glue the brim to the rest of the hat
making sure to line up the centre of one of the panels on the front
and the back with the centre line on the brim.
Then work your way around the rest of the hat.
Now glue the top on,
again lining up the front and back
before going around the edges.
and please, go outside when you are using contact cement,
it's stinky and bad for you.
The only reason I'm doing it inside here is so I can film it properly.
O.K. heat up the brim and give it a nice curve.
Grab your monkey
Does it look good?
and if it looks good on a monkey, you know it's gonna look great on you.
O.K. Glue on some hair clips,
For a bit of fun, I'm gonna add a keyhole
to the front.
which is kinda cool because you can put something
that glows in the hat and then you have a
glowing keyhole hat.
Obviously, you can do whatever you want...
...make some epoxy rivets...
...put on some extra detail...
...paint it brown...
...grab your Rub N' Buff and go crazy.
For more details on that, check out
"how to make a steampunk top hat"
So, you know what I love about mini top hats?
They're mini!
So you can fit heaps of them
In a… little tiny box!
As usual, there's a pattern link next to me here,
and you can click on that, support me, buy a pattern...
...make some top hats…
...be awesome.
With that pattern link, I have included the standard top hat
plus I've also made a pattern for a shorter top hat
if you 're into sort of more short top hats kinda thing
If that's your deal
I hope you had fun making your top hat
I had fun….making the video about making the top hat.