A last minute Witches Hat!

Natalie here ;)
Since it's the the night before Halloween, maybe just a few people will be able to use this idea, sorry I'm so last minute. I decided to follow a TV thing I saw and make myself a witches hat to answer the door with.

I have sitting here in this photo, a plant pot, fabric stiffener, a pack of black cheese-cloth, a skein of fuzzy black yarn, funny shaped wood beads, and a black tinsel thing I found in the christmas section of the craft store.
Since the plant pot isn't tapered, and I coulnd't find a styro cone big enough to fit it, I used this floral foam to create a point for my hat.

I cut it into slices to best fit the diameter of the bottom of the pot, and glued the slices together before I used a bread knife to slice it into a kind of a cone shape.

Then the fabric stiffener says to cover your mold with plastic wrap. I did, and it din't want to stick so well, so I used masking tape too.

I placed my cheese-cloth in a bowl, and this is a close up of the fabric stiffener.

Then I got the cheese cloth wet in just enough water to saturate it.

Then I decided I would do as the directions on the fabric stiffener suggested and add some paint.I wondered if I mixed gold in it, if I would have an irredecent black? It didn't really make a difference, but I used it, so I'm including photos.

I also added black paint. And here is the two colors of DD "sugar coating" glitter that I will use at the end.

Onto my wet fabric I poured the fabric stiffener, gold & black paint.

Then with rubber gloves, I mixed it all up and sloshed it around. Being wet from water made this easy.

Then I took the cloth, got it out of the bowl, squeezed the excess out, and found the center of the cloth.

I placed the center of the cloth over the top of the cone and then draped it over my mold. I let the base edges of the cloth ripple around the base.I pinned around the top of the had so that I could keep my point in the fabric.

With the hat in it's shape, I sprinkled glitter over it. This mess takes almost 8 hours to dry.

Within the first 3 hours, remove the hat from the form and give it a slight pinch on two sides so it's not round but oval like a head. Letting it dry on the form will make removing it later very difficult. Also set it on a surface it will not stick to and one that will clean up easily if you added paint to the mix.

I made this yesterday, it's dry and stiff, but I still need to decorate it for tomorrow. Here's what I've done and will do...

If it's too big, I plan on sinching it up by stitching embroidery floss around the base a couple times and tying the ends to the required circumfrence.

I've spray painted some of those funny shaped wooden beads black. I am going to use the skein of fuzzy thread to stitch them to the hat in a type of band around the base. It looks fluffy, but it's actually very thin. I will stitch through the hat to the outside, string a funny shaped black bead, a small black seed bead, and then go back through the funny shaped bead to the inside of the hat. I'll exit again and repeat for another bead.

Then I have that tinsel thingie. It's on wire, so I am going to decide if I want to keep it on the wire and connect it to the hat so that it's a bit of a bobble exiting the point. I haven't yet played with it, so I don't know how I'll make that work. Maybe it should be more of a focal at the front of the hat near the band.

Then to finish it off, I need to trim the base of the hat so it's not square. I figure I will try to keep it rough, and not circular, but definately not square.

I'm also going to give it a coating of hairspray to try and keep the glitter from getting itself all over the house as I walk around :)

TFL!