In the audience of my 'Naughty Women, Lovely Tea' presentations every year for the Crawford Long Museum, there are always in attendance the lovely Red Hat Society ladies. They really are a terrific group! Well, one day earlier this month I got an email from a couple of the members inviting me to their Queen's birthday party to be held at a local Tea House. They were asking me to be a guest, not to do a presentation. They said, "We have been to so many of your Teas, we wanted you to attend ours!" At first I was overjoyed!! Then panic set in. "What do I wear?!" Seriously. It seemed (even to me) quite ironic that I was frantic, not knowing what to wear to a Tea. But as I said, I was going as ME, 21st century me, not in costume. But I gathered my composure and (after a quick search on the good ol' WWW) I came up with an idea I could quickly do for a hat. (The ladies were kind enough to give me a pass on the regulated attire since I was not officially a member of the Society.)

Gotta love the internet! I found a pattern and instructions on Downloadandprint.com searching for 'how to make giant paper roses'. Gotta love free patterns! Pictured above are small, medium, and large petals, a circle base, and ...a cluster star thing. (You'll see what I mean.) The paper I used was 'butcher paper' thickness; it's not as thick as cardstock but thicker than regular paper.

I made two of the star cluster things and curled the spikes for two different finished sizes. Both curled clusters started out the same size as the flat one.

I cut out four of each size petal (giving me 12 total). I cut a straight slit up the middle of each petal about an inch or two long (depending on the size of the petal). I then crossed them in a bit and hot glued them together. This gave the bottom of the petal a concave curve. Lastly, I bent/curled the top en of the petal outward. I did all of these steps for every individual petal.

Then I got into the actual assembly and didn't take any more photos. (SORRY! I really suck at that.) But I tried to make up for it with this lovely illustration. (HA!) Feel free to send me a message if there's something you don't understand.

Once all the petals were secure (and my finger tips properly burned) I glued down the two star clusters (wider one on the bottom then the smaller one on top. As for the stamen, I ripped apart a dollar-store flower cluster (I think it was a hydrangea kind of thing) until there was only the green plastic left. I painted it black and glued it in the center. Then I glued the back of the flower to the off-center side of the hat and glued the ribbon around it.  DONE! Honestly, the cutting and curling of the petals is what took the longest. This is a very quick project, less than 30 minutes for assembly.

My hubby is a pretty awesome guy. So I made him a sign. We both love the character Caractacus Potts from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, played by the incredibly talented Dick Van Dyke. A little eccentric, totally brilliant. That's my guy. I've had this project in mind for a while but when I happened to be in Michael's art supply store one day, the blank wooden sign just jumped out and said, "Now is the time!" I don't have any in-process photos because I was doing it on the sly so I was careful not to leave it laying around. But here it is.