How to make a Bumble Bee Easter Parade Hat

Easter is not far away and those school notes with the date of the Easter Hat Parade start popping out of school bags, panic sets in.... Parents everywhere go in to "WTF am I going to do this year!!!" mode.

Don't panic I have you covered.
This design has a Spring feel and you can get the kids to help, with them making the Bumble Bees

DIY EASTER PARADE BUMBLE BEE HAT SUPPLIES

Strong Headband
Thick Felt or craft foam for the base
Brown corrugated packing paper or any type of brown paper

I recycled some paper that came on some shampoo with an online order but I have seen this stretchy cut paper on alcohol bottles and fruit as well.

Preschool Toy Ring stacker toy or some plastic tubing if you can't locate that. Fisher-Price always have this toy in stock and is under $10
Craft pipe cleaners
Premade craft pom poms in different sizes
Sequins
Paint & Glitter
Wire
Stapler
Craft glue or Hot glue gun

BUMBLEBEE HAT TUTORIAL STEPS
1| Paint your rings Yellow and let dry
2| Paint the second coat and sprinkle glitter over the rings for some sparkle while the paint is wet, I used gold glitter as I had no yellow. But work with what you have before buying anything is my motto lol Let dry

You do not have to add the glitter but I think it covers the paint streaks well and anything sparkly instantly makes things better!

While your paint is drying you can start on the base or the Fascinator hat.

3| Cut your foam or felt in a circle, and cut 4 little slits in it to slide the headband through. Then glue it in place.
4| With your paper, fold in small sections on one edge and staple as you go. While you are folding, you are also moving your folds into a circle so the paper starts forming a bowl-like shape.
5| Staple the paper to the foam circle, making sure you have the nicest part of the paper folded at the front where the face will be.

6| Make your Bumble Bee's

The full DIY BEE descriptive tutorial is HERE

Make as many or as few Bee's as you like, I made 7

7| With your wired Bees, hook them around your 2 top smallest rings, twist them with some pliers and tighten so Bees look like they are flying

8| Once the Bees are in place, glue the 3 rings together, the largest on the bottom, with the smallest at the top.

9| Glue the ring base to the centre of the brown paper,

A tip on how to keep the Beehive in place while drying is to place the headband over your knee, this doesn't make for an attractive picture, but it sure is a useful trick of the trade while making fascinators or anything on a headband 😉

10| Add extra Bumble Bees to the front of the hive and on the paper.

11| Once completed, you can cut the paper to suit the size of your child's face, I like leaving this until last to see the full impact of the design. You do not have to cut if it looks fine already, if it is covering the face too much, cut it shorter.

I love the result of this Easter Parade Hat, as simple as the design is, it's quite effective. I wish I could have got more photos of it on my niece but the rain didn't want to stop today.