If you have plans for New Year’s Eve and want to make some festive headwear, try your creativity at a feathery and glittery NYE fascinator that will only cost you about $5!

Ever since my eldest Fancy Girl was a baby, we have been going to our favorite local diner for New Year’s Eve dinner. We gave up the party circuit to instead have a low-key and comfortable/cozy dinner with just us (oh and the diner has a bar and very creative cocktail menu, which is another reason why we chose it). A few years ago, I started introducing silly NYE hats to our festivities (the patrons enjoyed them too), and now that the girls are older, we make our hats. Last year, we made black party hats with gold glitter dots (which my middle Fancy Girl modeled); this year I was inspired by these party hat fascinators that retail for around $13-15 depending on where you shop. I’m always up for a challenge and knew I could pull this off for much, much less. And I did for about $5 each! For projects like these, I aim to get all or at least most of my supplies from my local Dollar Tree, which tends to have the best holiday decoratios and accessories. I started with these mini silver cone hats ($1.99) and then picked up some extra supplies at the dollar store. The process for making these hats will vary depending on the decorations you use, but the general idea is as follows:

(Big Sis got to do the modeling this year)

Materials to make 2 fascinators:
– Glue gun (I tried tacky craft glue first, and that was just not strong enough)
– 2 mini silver party hats
– 2 masquerade masks with feather attachment in either black or white
– silver tinsel
– gold decorative ribbon
– black sequin headband

Instructions:

1. Remove the feather piece from the masquerade mask. That will serve as the back to your party hat.

2. You will need a flat base for the bottom of your party hat that you will then glue to your headband. I cut a shape from the masquerade mask since that was flexible enough to bend to the headband. You can always use felt as well, but the dollar store didn’t have any. Using your hot glue gun, glue the base to your party hat.

3. Pick out the extras that you will glue onto the back of the party hat. I used the feathers + tinsel or ribbon for each of the fascinators. I let the girls choose what they wanted theirs to look like. I was lucky that the feathers were already glued onto a cardboard circle which was attached to the masquerade mask. If you do not have a mask to work with, and are using loose feathers, just cut a circle of cardboard and glue your feathers in place first. That will serve as a nice solid base to glue your hat to.

4. Glue your hat onto the bed of feathers & others. Let dry. The back of my feather attachment showed the cardboard circle it was attached to the masquerade mask with, so I just covered it with more tinsel and ribbon. You can always add more feathers too.

5. Add a line of glue slightly off center of your headband and attach your hat. Lay it on its side to let it set.

6. And that’s it! You’re ready to ring in the new year!