Lolita Craft Night! And Hat box!

So Sunday night, Mi - tan and I went over to another Loli's house where we had snacks, delightful conversation, and worked on our own crafting projects!  It was the first night of our craft night, and I had a really good time.  Our Hostess, Sally, let us into her lovely home and fed us.  She also had some of her own creations around her house.  I thought this was really neat and helped with the theme of the night (not to mention that the clothes are beautiful!).  The picture on the left is of our hostess, and yes, she made the dress she is wearing!  She's lucky that I was too busy carrying my sewing machine into her house because I think I would have tried to figure out a way to steal it from her person (kidding... mostly :P ).

Here are the lovely ladies who attended our meet!  There were others who arrived before Mi-tan and I but I didn't get a picture of them.  Left picture is of Mi-tan and Tola.  It would seem that I put the two designers in one picture as Tola and Mi-tan both sew and design clothes!  The right picture is of Angelica and Olivia.  Olivia has her own blog as well, you can read it here, Black Witch.  Angelica is a very sweet girl, she also has made her own clothing (one piece I am still trying to figure out how she made without pulling her hair out!)  All of these girls are great and I am looking forward to the next craft night!

  As mentioned earlier, Sally had some of her own creations around her house.  I took the liberty of taking some pictures!  Sadly the picture on the right came out blurry.  I can only hope that Sally has this dress out again next time so that I may take another clear picture of it.  The skirt (left) is actually a Bodyline skirt that Sally plans on altering, and I cannot wait to see what she does with it!  I have legwarmers I could wear with it, and I love the bow in the front!



I took some more pictures of the girls, to show off their outfits.  Olivia (left) is wearing a skirt from Bodyline (I think that is what she said), not sure where the shirt is from, or the neat little bow/flower thingy she has.  She has cyberlocks, because she is awesome and therefore needs no other reason!  Mi-tan (right) I believe she is wearing a purple gingham dress from HMHM.  Ladies, feel free to correct me if I am wrong on anything.

 Tola (left) is wearing a pink Innocent World dress/jsk.  I love Innocent World, if I had the money I would get myself an Innocent World dress, skirt, everything!  I also love how she paired it with pink sneakers to give it more of a casual look.  Overall, very cute.  Angelica (right), I didn't get to ask her where her pieces from her outfit came from, but I think that what she is wearing is a perfect example of casual Lolita, especially if it is something you want to wear out and feel comfortable but still be Lolita.  Sunday night was a great night to get dressed up!

   And we finally get to crafting!  And Sally's husband comes in to join in on the fun!  Not really, but he did join us in conversation.  Sally is holding a pattern for a apron I believe, Tola is working on jewelry if memory serves me correctly.  Angelica is sketching, I am sad to say that I am not sure exactly what she was working on.  Mi-tan is crocheting, and I was sewing, working on my skirt, which I still have yet to finish (its soooo close to being
done!).

The next day after our meet, I got the itch to work on another craft project, specifically for my hats.  For the longest time I wanted to take mini hat boxes and paint them, decorate and line then with cloth.  So I have been working on one.  The inside still needs to be lined and I am not finished with the outside.  Despite all that I wanted to share with you my current progress.  I hate the bottom flower, so I tried to cover it with the V.  It wasn't until after I finished the second flower that I remembered what and orange rose meant when given to someone.  Yes, flowers had meanings behind them!  To put it simply, it meant that you hated/disliked them.  Oh well, I think over all its ok, but I still have more that I want to do to it.

Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I am tired and I have a long day of running around, cleaning, and trying not to go crazy.  Hopefully get to some more crafts soon!  Stay Pretty!

-Lolita Doll 11

New JSK

I probably shouldn't make posts about my creations before I make them, but I am just so excited for this!  So after the whole skirt problem, I decided that I needed to take a break and work on some other stuff.  There is this fabric that has been sitting in a bag, in my room (like most of my fabric).  Last night I couldn't sleep, so I made a few skirt designs.  One for a red skirt and the other for a skirt with a dessert print on it.  I ended up drawing a JSK and when I finally got out of bed today I started to work on it.

The skirt has the same basic shape of Bodyline's Music Melody (see picture on left).  I have no idea if I want to have the little ruffle on the top of the straps though.  I will be adding these very cute buttons and that the bottom of the skirt will be a scallop hem.  It was a little frustrating trying to figure out how to make the scallop hem, but I think it turned out as best as it could without someone having to show me.  I still have enough fabric to make a hair bow, hat, bonnet.  I have never made a bonnet before, so maybe I will do that!

After this JSK is done, I will work on a new skirt, after I have secured all the items I will need to make it.  It's a very pretty deep red that will have some black in it.  The skirt will hopefully look very fluffy after I find the right petite coat to give it the volume it will need.  It's very pretty and would be nice for a night out with the girls or that special someone.  Hopefully I will be wearing it in March/April!

In other news, I decided that I am going to take a sewing class.  Even though I have made some great things, I think that I would benefit by being formally trained by someone with experience and can help me make better items, whatever they might be.  Also, I am learning from friends too, it's how I got started.  I am so thankful to my friends and family and the support they have given me in all that I do or have wanted to do.  Here is to hoping that there are just bigger and better things for me!

-Lolita Doll 11

Post Photoshoot

Our shoot was rather comical.  We started out with all these nifty ideas to shoot in the park and sadly we didn't get to all of them due to the cold.  Never the less, I had fun and was happy that it happened!  The cake was good and it came out very pretty!  I'll post a picture of it.  Mi-tan and I did lots of talking and I have decided that I am going to stalk her every now and then (kidding!  Well, mostly).

We started out at Double Rock Park and set up a picnic scene.  Though the desserts were yummy, it got too cold for us to even properly hold the food (I kept dropping strawberries!)  We also got some pictures of us sitting on a log, looking cute.  After we couldn't stand the cold anymore we decided to pack it up and move on to my friend Kate's house.  There we did some product shots, and hopefully I will get to post those before my hats sell... then again, a sold hat is a sold hat, so either was doesn't really bother me.  (Please buy a hat so I can save for a serger machine!)After Kate's we drove to Mi-tan's place, got pulled over for a headlight being out before actually making it to her place and hung out for a little while before I myself headed home (the long 5 minute drive, if that).

As for my skirt, I am redoing the skirt and tutorial.  Hopefully by doing this I will have a better constructed skirt and more in the future.  I really want to work better on the sewing skills as I would like to start selling skirts on Etsy soon.  Well, I am going to start ripping my skirt apart, just so I can put it back together!  Hopefully the shape comes out better.

Off to sleep now!  Goodnight and looking forward to posting again soon!

-Lolita Doll 11

Skirt Bombed

It's 2:30 am right now, and I have given up on this particular skirt that I was working on... Its sad because I made this really cute hair bow that would have matched it... I don't know, I might go back to it later, but working on it right now is just driving me insane.  So... I'm baking a cake... at 2:30 in the morning...  Why?  Two reasons.  1, I have a shoot with another Lolita, Mi - tan.  Here is her Blog, go look at it!  http://atelierenchanteur.blogspot.com/  Anyway, we are going to have a Picnic theme for the shoot.  2, I really want something sweet to eat tomorrow!

I'm really excited because I will be getting better pictures of my hats, some jewelry.  Its also going to be my first time shooting with my friend Kate, if she has a website I will add it later.  Kate will be our photographer and I used to work with her (meaning we were coworkers).  Also, me and Mi - tan (I have no idea if she would be ok with me putting her real name on here or not) will actually get to hangout outside of a Lolita meet and get to know each other more.  I'm a fan of her designs, and hopefully, ONE DAY I too will have awesome clothing to sell too!  But I think I might need to take some classes to just make everything look a bit cleaner... and so my sewing machine stops screaming at me when I try to do something.

It's really hard to admit your short comings, especially since one of my biggest dreams is to become a designer.  Nothing comes easy I suppose!  But for the meantime I will just keep trying to teach myself, and hope that it goes well!  Well, back to my cake and hopefully sleep soon.

-Lolita Doll 11

PS.  Doesn't the blog look awesome now?!  Big thanks to my friend Ren!  Awesome hat in your future!

Sales, Sales, Oh look its a Sale!

Hey everyone!

So it’s been a few days since I have posted anything. I have been working on a Lolita skirt for all of you and documenting it. Sadly I ran out of thread and even ran out of colors that didn't even match my fabric (all the stitching are on the inside so no one will ever see it!). So I went to Joann Fabrics and purchased some thread to hold me over for the time being

While at Joann's I noticed a few things that I thought you crafty people might like to know in case you were unaware. They are currently having a sale on Guttermann thread, all of it is 40% off and that is what I ended up purchasing. It is my first time using it so hopefully it goes well and does what I need it to do. There are also some clearance items. If you need to make bloomers or a skirt with an elastic waistband, the elastic that they sell by the yard is clearance from .97 cents to .25 cents a yard depending on what kind you are buying. There are also some sewing notions (needles and pins, etc) that are also on clearance, I didn't get to take much of a good look there as I was jumping from one to the other. As always there are still the red tag fabrics (but the additional 50% off is no longer in effect, but will keep you updated for when its back).

Now for those that are not into sewing, let’s say that you like to make jewelry. Well there are also clearance items in the jewelry section, and not the crappy cheap stuff either. The crystal beads that were once $7.99 are now $3.99. Now a lot of you are probably thinking "but that is $3.99 for a small amount of beads". This is true but these are also Swarovski grade crystal beads. It’s not just the crystal beads either, there are some sterling silver pieces that went on clearance but they are going really fast.

Clay! I think it was the Fimo and Sculpey that I saw on sale or clearance. These are good for people who like to make things out of clay, like making their own beads, mugs, trinket boxes, anything you can think of really. A lot of people tell me how they don't like how the finished product looks, that it doesn't look 'polished' enough. Well they sell a gloss that you can put on your artwork, and make it nice and glossy, just like art class after your teacher fires up your vase that you made for your mom, but you didn't read the color label of the gloss you picked... so instead of red you got neon green. Ok, maybe not exactly like that, this stuff is just a clear gloss and has the Sculpey brandname on it, but should still work with Fimo if you want to use that product instead. In the future I will actually tinker around with some clay, trying to make my own beads. Not sure how well that will go but it should be fun!

Now let’s say there isn't a Joann's near you. Not to worry, they have an online store! YAY! (bare with me, I haven't slept yet).

http://www.joann.com/joann/home/home.jsp?topnavlink=true

There is also a coupon right on the front of the site, so if you find an item that is not on sale, you can use your 50% off coupon! To get more coupons, I suggest jumping into their mailing list. "But I just have Michael's and AC Moore coupons", Joann's will take those too! No excuse! :P

Well, back to my skirt with matching hair bow. Hopefully I will have my finished product and tutorial up for you tomorrow. Stay pretty! (I need to come up with a better catchphrase).

-Lolita Doll 11

Fabric Shopping

 Hey everyone!

So I just got back from Joann Fabrics and I bought fabric for both my niece and I.  While I am making 'Doll Clothing for Adults' as some of my friends who are not into Lolita would say, my niece is making actual doll clothes and bedding.  We came up with a pretty haul at the store, mainly sticking to their red tag fabrics which had an additional 50% off on top of the sale.  What should have been well over $100, was only $44 for the both of us!

        So, I got some great pieces to make some skirts , dresses, and accessories.  I even found a roll of fabric that looked as though it has girls dressed in Lolita on it!  I couldn't believe I found it, so I bought the whole thing!  So, I am going to be making some sketches of the dresses and skirts that I would like to make with each fabric.  Looking forward to seeing how this all comes out, as well as seeing how my niece's dresses for her dolls look too.

I am also going to be changing how my blog currently looks with the help of a friend.  Just need to make some sketches of that too and we should be ready to go with our alterations!

Here are some Sketches I have done so far.  Hopefully I will be getting started on them soon!

Until next time!

-Lolita Doll 11

Videos, Lolita Themed

 Disclaimer:  The videos that I am sharing are not mine, nor do I take any credit in their creation.  I simply

enjoyed these videos and thought that others would

enjoy them too.  I really think there should be more videos about this fashion, explaining what it is, and why we wear it.  I love watching the documentaries, but I also like watching the videos of girls just sitting in front of their cameras basically saying "This is who I am and it makes me happy."

 I hope you enjoy and you share some of your own
videos that you might find :)

    The first video is a documentary on a group of girls from Australia.  I think one of the girls in this is also in the music video for "Throw it in the Bag" which I will leave at the end of this blog post.  The next three videos are all one in the same.  They are one of the first few videos I found on Youtube about the fashion, and I was eating it up even though it was all subtitled. The documentary focuses on three different stories.  Watching these videos just makes me love the fashion even more and I want nothing more than to just find even more people who share the same love for the fashion and culture as I do.

One of my dreams is to become a designer and open my own shop and selling my own Lolita Designs.  Its going to take some time since I need to go back to school, but in the meantime I am teaching myself as much as I can, and learning wherever I can.  I have thought of trying to get tables at Conventions, but was told a table was like $400.00, which is explains why sometimes shopping at a convention can get expensive!  If I am unable to become a designer, I know I want to do something with my life that involves Lolita.  Maybe opening a Tea House or something.  What I am getting at is that watching these videos and seeing these girls... it gives me hope that even though I may not be moving as fast as I like, that wherever I am meant to be I will get there as long as I can do what I can to get myself there.

I like this girl, don't know her personally, but she covers some really important things.  Don't care what other people think, stereotypes, and how you can make your own fashion.  I have found a few more videos of girls, young girls who go to school dressed in Lolita and I wish when I first got into the fashion that I was brave enough to just not care and wear it.  Now I try to wear it when I can, and honestly I don't get bothered by people too often, people mostly question what it is and why your wearing it.  Maybe one day I'll be able to walk outside of my door wearing whatever I want and people wont be taking double takes (though to be honest, its kind of fun).

So here are some American girls!  If I could edit 

video, I would try to make my own.  I am going to be recording at a Lolita meet, but don't expect the video to be up soon, I'm going to see if I can play around with it.  I will be conducting interviews, nothing too extensive though since its suppose to be a crafting meet and greet.  If you can think of any questions you would like me to ask the girls please let me know and I will see about making it happen!

And as promised!  'Throw It In The Bag!"

I hoped you enjoyed the videos!  Until next time!

-Lolita Doll 11

Lolita/Renaissance Hat... Revisted

You will need: 2 felt hats.  OK to Wash Fabric Glue by Aleene's.  Scissors.  Hot Glue Gun.  Hairclip/comb/ribbon.  Trim of your choice.

Step one.
Take one of your felt hats and scissor.  Start off by cutting the brim of your hat.  Yes, your going to cut your hat into pieces.  After you cut the brim off, make a slit up the side, to the top of the hat.  


Good, now cut the rest of the body of the hat off from the very top of the hat, keeping the top of the hat's circular/oval shape.  So now you have a bunch of hat pieces, right?  This is going to be the pattern you will use for the fabric.  The best part about this is that after you have cut this one hat up, you don't have to cut another one up, just keep the pieces and you can make more in the future!



 
Step two.
After you have chosen your fabric, take the pieces of your cut up hat and proceed to cut your fabric.  Now, depending on your fabric choice you might have to tweak how your cutting.      

Now for the brim, I cut two pieces.  One for the top and one for the bottom.  You don't have to do both, its just what I like to do.With fabrics that have more give then others I make the hole on the topside of the top brim smaller, where the bottom piece the opening will be normal size.  The brim on the bottom will be wider than the top piece.  (Hopefully I haven't lost you yet!)

 Step three.
Its now time to bring out your fabric glue.  I start with the brim first.  You don't have to, but I think it looks better this way for me.  Take your uncut hat and smear the fabric glue around on the brim.  I also like to let the glue sit on the hat so that it can get nice and tacky for when I put the fabric on.  Slip the top cover of the brim over the hat and smooth it over the brim, and fold over the extra fabric to the other side of the brim and glue it down.  Some of the glue might seep through the fabric, don't worry because the glue
dries clear.  After you have secured your fabric 
This process can be a bit long and tedious, but it is well worth the wait and effort.  After your feel that the glue has dried enough I like to then put the very top piece onto the hat, again smearing the glue on top and them smooth over the fabric.





  The middle, or body of the hat should be the only thing left to be covered (except for the bottom of the brim of course).  Take your fabric and glue, and put glue on the top and bottom edge of the fabric.  Now fold it over so that it looks like you have a clean hem.  After the glue has dried enough on the fabric it is time to go ahead and glue on the 

 middle of the hat.  













Your going to wrap the fabric around the hat, making sure that the folded sides are facing into the hat.  One side will over lap the other, this is normal.  This is where I like to do another fold and glue it down, making it appear that there is a seam going up the side of the hat.  







Now, if you want to, you can take the bottom brim fabric and just like we did with the edges of the middle piece, we will do the same to the bottom of the brim piece (I have a feeling pictures are going to make this much easier to understand, and a video which I will try to do soon).  Again, this gives the hat a clean look once you glue the bottom piece.  

You now have a fully fabric covered hat!

 Step four.
This is where it gets easier, or at least it should be easier.  Before you plug in your glue gun, play around with your trim a bit, find what looks better with what.  After you have an idea of what you want your hat to look like your ready to start gluing!

Before anything, I like to glue down my ribbon/band around my hat.  

After that I will add a bow, flowers, or a pendent to go on the front or side of my hat.  After I have finished with my gluing, sometimes I will add a string of beading onto the hat if I feel that it needs it.

Step five.

I always add my hair clip or ribbon at the end, again you don't have to go by this example completely, its just how I like to do it.  If you're using a hair clip, I like to make sure that the clip is about the same width as the opening of the hat because the hat will have better support on your head.  I place the clip right in the middle and use the hot glue gun to glue each end of the clip to my hat.  With ribbons you can either sew them in, or glue them.  Its going to be faster and easier to glue, but with sewing you might feel more at ease about how tight you tie your hat on to your head.

And now you have your very own Lolita hat!

PS.

I tried to edit this... and I made things worse... my computer is not helping so I am just going to stop here and come back to this when I have a properly working computer...

 over the brim, again let the hat sit for a while.

Pictures of Finished Tie and Hat

I'm still working on editing the images that show all the steps.  I have to cut them down and make it as one image so that the pictures don't scatter into chaos.  So for now, here are the finished products of the first two crafting projects for the year 2012!

I didn't originally intend to do both in the same fabric, but I like both.  Really glad I didn't over do it with the hat.  I look forward to wearing it to the Maryland Renaissance festival.  As for the tie, I will be wearing it to work tomorrow.  I don't think I could get away with the hat as lovely as it is.

Here is a closer picture if the hat.  In all honestly I had no clue that my hat would turn out this way, but I am glad it did.  The only thing I would change would be that the bottom of the pin is showing.  I might try to fix it later.  It wasn't until after I glued the pin to the feathers did I see that the tip on the pin was broken, but I managed to get it onto the hat (I wouldn't recommend taking it off).  Still, it came out very lovely.

Well, its early in the morning and I still need to sleep.  Until tomorrow :)

-Lolita Doll 11

Ties!

Ok, so Now that we have covered hats (still working on the pictures), next project is ties!

For this project I did end up buying a pattern because I have never made a tie before.  Honestly, I might just completely do away with this pattern because it didn't really make much sense for me (and here I thought I was doing something simple!).  I bought my fabric, interfacing, and the lining for the tie.  When I couldn't figure out what to do from there, even with the pattern, I turned to www.youtube.com!  I was very excited to find a very easy video explaining to me how to make my own tie, and I was able to use my own pattern that I bought (though I had to tweak it a bit).

I love ties!  Never really got the chance to wear them (because I haven't really seen many girly ties being sold) I didn't want to buy a man's tie (how sexist of me!).  So I have some of this black and red silky/satiny fabric with some embroider flowers on them (You will note that the tie matches the hat... when you see the pictures of both!).  Sadly... I didn't think that when you iron such fabric... its probably best to iron on the back or with a towel over it... Yes, that is right everyone, I burned the front of my tie.  But, I decided to save my tie and add this flower on the front.  I might add some more, like two more smaller ones going down.

Anyway, normally I would cover the checklist of what is needed for this project, but I think Threadbangers did an awesome job, so I am just going to leave you the link so that you can have the same great experience that I myself had!  Feel free to leave pictures of your own tie or hat creations, or if you have your own craft project you want to share.

-Lolita Doll 11
Threadbanger- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jHZo_UK2bs

Running into problems... And next project!

So things with the hat are going ok... its just that I have taken more pictures than I thought I would be taking, so I need to find a way to turn it into a slide show.  I need some kind of video editing program (because I will not use youtube for editing because it hates me!).  So I'm going to get going with my projects while I find the fastest way to get the final pieces of my tutorial to you!  I will try to post a few pictures so you can get an idea until then, and so you can see my finished product!

Tomorrow's new project will be (drum roll please....)

TIES!

... Mainly because this hat that I made will match the tie... and my niece wants one of her own... and its the fastest way to get rid of this fabric that was lovingly donated to me.  Well, its been a long day everyone, I am calling it a night!  Until tomorrow :)

-Lolita Doll 11

Annnnd its time to get started!

Happy New Year everyone!  And so starts my year of crafting!  I thought that this year, the best start would be with my very first Lolita craft that I have ever done, which was making hats.  Now this will not be a daily thing.  Each Craft I will try to give myself a deadline of a week or two but some crafts might just end up taking longer because... well I work and people like to do this weird thing with me, "hanging out" or something...  Which is weird because there is no hanging involved! :P

So, I will start with giving the list of what is needed when making your own Lolita Hat.  Now I started out by just taking a black felt hat, and spray painting it gold and then decorating it, or just leaving it black.  Now I put fabric on my hats (most of the time, sometimes I don't).  So you can do whatever you feel comfortable with.  You can either join me in customizing your hat by putting your choice of fabric on it, or you can skip that and simply add whatever trimmings you have acquired in your craft box.  I like to reuse items, for example if I have a pretty necklace that I loved and it broke to the point that there was no fixing it, I may include it to one of my hat projects.  You can use a really cool button, or pin that you found.  Whatever you find, if you like it and you think it should go on your hat, then do it!

So lets get started on making your own hat, shall we?  (But Lolita Doll 11, doesn't that defeat the purpose of you even selling hats on Etsy if you're just going to tell us how?) Hush you!  You're ruining it for everyone!
Ok, now that the silly stuff is out of the way, lets go over our supply list.

You will need:

2 Mini felt doll hats, can be purchased at most craft stores.  If you're looking for something a little bigger or you simply cannot find any, I would suggest ordering online from http://www.sunshinecrafts.com/  Their prices are pretty good and when I order from them it usually gets to me pretty fast.  Note: if you are skipping adding fabric, then you only need 1 hat.

OK to Wash-It fabric glue by Aleene's.  Again, if you're not using fabric, do not worry about getting this.

Scissors.  Fiskars are the best.  End of story.

Hot Glue Gun, with glue sticks! (which reminds me, I need a new one, mine is kind of leaking in places it shouldn't leak.)

Hair clip, hair comb, or ribbon that will be used to fasten the hat to you're head.  I find that with the larger hats, I need to use ribbon or some kind of tie, and I like how it looks and it makes me feel like I am back in the Victorian era, wearing a bonnet/riding hat or something :)

Trim!  Ribbons, flowers, gems, pins, feathers, just about anything.  I plan on taking a little fake bird from Joanns and putting it on my hat some day, maybe on this hat!

Now, I do not have any pictures ready just yet, so tomorrow after work I will come home and get started on my hat and take pictures so everyone can get a good idea of what I am doing and how you're project is supposed to be going.  Until then, hopefully my directions will be clear enough :)

Step one.
Take one of your felt hats and scissor.  Start off by cutting the brim of your hat.  Yes, your going to cut your hat into pieces.  After you cut the brim off, make a slit up the side, to the top of the hat.  Good, now cut the rest of the body of the hat off from the very top of the hat, keeping the top of the hat's circular/oval shape.  So now you have a bunch of hat pieces, right?  This is going to be the outline for the fabric you will cut for your hat.  The best part about this is that after you have cut this one hat up, you don't have to cut another one up, just keep the pieces and you can make more in the future!

Step two.
After you have chosen your fabric, take the pieces of your cut up hat and proceed to cut your fabric.  Now, depending on your fabric choice you might have to tweak how your cutting.    With the middle, or body of the hat, I give it some extra because we will be folding over the top and bottom of this piece of fabric (that goes for all kinds of fabric, not just stretchy).  Now for the brim, I cut two pieces.  One for the top and one for the bottom.  You don't have to do both, its just what I like to do.With fabrics that have more give then others I make the hole on the inside of the top brim smaller, where the bottom piece the opening will be normal size.  The brim on the bottom will be wider than the top piece.  (Hopefully I haven't lost you yet!)

Step three.
Its now time to bring out your fabric glue.  I start with the brim first.  You don't have to, but I think it looks better this way for me.  Take your uncut hat and smear the fabric glue around on the brim.  I also like to let the glue sit on the hat so that it can get nice and tacky for when I put the fabric on.  Slip the top cover of the brim over the hat and smooth it over the brim, and fold over the extra piece of fabric to the other side of the brim and glue it down.  Some of the glue might seep through the fabric, don't worry because the glue dries clear.  After you have secured your fabric over the brim, again let the hat sit for a while.  This process can be a bit long and tedious, but it is well worth the wait and effort.  After your feel that the glue has dried enough I like to then put the very top piece onto the hat, again smearing the glue on top and them smooth over the fabric.  The middle, or body of the hat should be the only thing left to be covered (except for the bottom of the brim of course).  Take your fabric and glue and put glue on the top and bottom edge of the fabric.  Now fold it over so that it looks like you have a clean hem.  After the glue has dried enough on the fabric it is time to go ahead and glue on the middle of the hat.  Your going to wrap the fabric around the hat, making sure that the folded sides are facing into the hat.  One side will over lap the other, this is normal.  This is where I like to do another fold and glue it down, making it appear that there is a seam going up the side of the hat.  Now, if you want to, you can take the bottom brim fabric and just like we did with the edges of the middle piece, we will do the same to the bottom of the brim piece (I have a feeling pictures are going to make this much easier to understand, and a video which I will try to do soon).  Again, this gives the hat a clean look once you glue the bottom piece.  You now have a fully fabric covered hat!

Step four.
This is where it gets easier, or at least it should be easier.  Before you plug in your glue gun, play around with your trim a bit, find what looks better with what.  After you have an idea of what you want your hat to look like your ready to start gluing!  Before anything, I like to glue down my ribbon/band around my hat.  After that I will add a bow, flowers, or a pendent to go on the front of my hat.  After I have finished with my gluing, sometimes I will add a string of beading onto the hat if I feel that it needs it.

Step five.
I always add my hair clip or ribbon at the end, again you don't have to go by this example completely, its just how I like to do it.  If you're using a hair clip, I like to make sure that the clip is about the same width as the hat because the hat will have better supported on your head.  I place the clip right in the middle and use the hot glue gun to glue each end of the clip to my hat.  With ribbons you can either sew them in, or glue them.  Its going to be faster and easier to glue, but with sewing you might feel more at ease about how tight you tie your hat on to your head.

And now you have your very own Lolita hat!  I hope that this was informative and helpful.  I'll be adding the photos tomorrow (still today, just tomorrow for me since I have not slept yet) since that is when I will be working on my hat!  Goodnight everyone and have a wonderful New Year!

-Lolita Doll 11