Confessing My Hat Addiction

I’ve always loved hats.

The most glamorous women in the movies wear great hats.

We knew by the titanic size of her hat that Rose was fabulously wealthy and chic.

The makeover was complete when the once unacceptable wore a fabulous hat.

Although their loves might slip away, the leading lady always looked fabulous in her hat.

Even men became real women when they wore a hat.

When I was growing up, all the women at church wore hats.  No Easter ensemble was complete without a new hat.

Exhibit 6 – My first Easter -1957.  Notice the hats.  One for Mom, one for me.

I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to wear a hat.  And then came the ’60s and the ’70s, and the only women who wore hats lived in England.

The Queen wasn’t as hip then as she may look.

But this past year brought us the wedding of Kate and Will and hats are back! No, I’m not going to show you Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.  Close your eyes and you can imagine them.   It’s time to show you MY hats.

These are hats that I’ve found at Good Cents and have sold or plan to sell on EBay or Etsy.  Are you still with me?

A glamorous wide brim black hat with a big silk bow.

A rusty orange brushed felt with faux crocodile band. Very chic ’70s.

A very Mandarin looking pill box topped with assorted feathers.

A vintage early ’70s cranberry floppy brimmed hat. Why didn’t I see this in the ’70s?

Late 1950s white straw hat.

Wait til you see what’s under that brim…

Can you see?  The inner brim rings your head with pearls and silver beads.  This would look stunning on a woman with sleek black hair.

The 1980s produced this cute red felt with a removable red scarf.

A very simple round crown in navy felt, with a velvet band affixed with a round jeweled pin. I can’t be sure of the decade, but it could be as late as the 1990s.

Do you think the black beret with a black bead accent is 21st century?

This black felt with velvet band and trim is perfect for winter.

The hat below is a velvet pill box with black bead trim all around the hat and a veil. My guess is early 1950s.

A sculptural brim on a cranberry felt hat.  Could be for church or a Derby party.

I WISH that I could pull off this wine colored felt cloche with the navy trimmed bow.  It’s just a tad small for me.  Gorgeous on my blond daughter. Well, they all are.

I’ll wind it up with a straw cloche trimmed in black cotton on the band and brim.  I actually wore this one at last Fall’s garage sale.  You can’t be too dressed up for your garage sale.

What I really wanted to look like was this…

Or this…..

I wish I could say that you’ve seen all the hats, but there are more.  I can’t show you all now.  I know I’m a tease.

Women who wear hats can do that, you know.

 

Mardi Gras Window

Yes, it’s Mardi Gras and that means many people have enjoyed a good party or two over the last couple of weeks.  The extent of my partying this year was my Mardi Gras window.  I loved having a party in my office every day.

This window was a team effort.   One of my coworkers loaned me her jester, although he doesn’t really represent Mardi Gras, he certainly looks like he’s having fun.

Another coworked contributed his collection of King Cake babies.

My favorite is the “bean” baby.

Whole Foods supplied The Bean in the Cake story as an explanation.

The rest of the “decor” came from me and most from my trips to Good Cents. Someone created this mask, ribbon and bead piece and then tossed it to Goodwill.  I was pleased to rescue it, if for only a few days a year.

This little harlequin ornament took high honors on the book and mirror pedestal.

Herry got into the action with a homemade mask and some beads.

I was very  happy to get to dive into my ornament stash.  One would expect green and gold ornaments would be in my stash because of Christmas, but, I couldn’t believe I had so many purple ornaments.   I had picked them up along the way because I “needed” them for Mardi Gras. Does purple go with any other holiday?  Does anyone want a purple (and pink or gold or green or silver or red) wreath? Anyone? Hello?

Speaking of wreaths, this was my favorite part of the window.  A Mardi Gras wreath I made with my ornaments and stuff I found at … well, you know where.

A feather boa, a ceramic mask, sparkly trimmings, gold ribbon, beads and ornaments are wired on a foam wreath base covered in purple fabric from a prom dress. I made the wreath in an evening while watching television.  The best part is the absence of hot glue, so it can all be reused.

So, the office was a fun place to be.  Even better would have been New Orleans.  But most of all….

Happy Mardi Gras … Laissez les bons temps roule!! 

(For those of you who haven’t been to New Orleans… Let the Good Times Roll!)

Valentine’s Day “Found” wreath

In my last post I showed you the ornament wreath I made.

I told you that I bought a pair of pants at Good Cents to use for fabric to back the wreath.  When I got through making the wreath, here’s what I had left.

3 ornaments… some cardboard… the scraps from the pants.

And right next to me, hanging on the wall, was the metal “wreath” into which I tucked Christmas cards, and had failed to take down.

I don’t really know what this metal circle is.  It had no hanger, so I’m not certain it was meant to hang on the wall. If you recognize it, let me know its original purpose.

I tossed the wreath down on the table and thought, “what can I do with all this stuff?”

And this is what I came up with….

A heart from the leg of the pants, glued to the cardboard heart, three leftover ornaments, and a bow from the waistband of the pants.

Total time invested, 3 minutes.

One of my quickest crafts ev-ah!

It may be scraps to you, but it’s found a place in my heart this year.

Cost –

• “wreath” – 50 ¢
• ornaments – 5¢
• fabric scraps – free

Total – 55¢

Here’s hoping you find fun and something surprising in every thing you do.

Valentine’s Day Office Window

It’s time to share the office Valentine’s window.  Yeah… I never posted the Christmas window pictures.  Oh well… there’s always next year. I made this wreath two years ago with stuff I bought at Good Cents.  I had completely forgotten about it.  Imagine my surprise when I opened the Valentine’s Day decorations box.  A wreath for each side of the window.

There isn’t really a theme for this window.  It’s just every heart-shaped, cupidy angel, love thing I could find in my stash.

I made this ornament wreath.  It’s embarrassing how many ornaments I have in my stash.

The wreath took a couple of hours last Sunday night.  Not hard, but I ended up with some burns on my fingers from the HOT glue gun.  Hmmm… next I’m going to make a Mardi Gras wreath!!

What you don’t see is the back of the wreath. I had planned to hang it in the middle of the window, which meant that you would be able to see the back.  I didn’t have enough red ornaments to cover the styrofoam base.  So the next day I went to GoodCents where I bought a pair of red corduroy pants for $1, so that I could use the red fabric to “finish” the wreath.  I’m so excited by the red corduroy.  Going to use it to make some fun stuff.

Love the little angels that I’m pretending are cupids. This angel is blowing a kiss.

This angel is blowing a double kiss.

This little angel, and everything else in the window came from Good Cents, even for this picture.

It’s a vintage print on canvas of Raphael’s The Marriage of the Virgin or Lo Sposolizio.  How romantic is that?!

Only thirteen more days until Valentine’s Day.  Will there be romance in your life?