A New Years Eve project....

I had a hankerin' to do something fun for the kiddos for New Years. We are headed to a friend's house with the kids, so we won't make it until midnight, Steve has to work on the 1st, but I thought we should have fun while we are there! 2009 is almost here!

Ever since I first spied the Pixee Stix from Pink Paislee I have wanted to turn one of them into a magic wand for one of my girls. I've had an empty one for a little while and thought it would be a great way to bring in the new year.

I wanted to make some party hats to go with it and after searching around for a fun template, I decided to do a Martha. You can download a template for a cone hat from Martha here. Cone hats are really simple though, so you don't even need a template. You can enlarge the template size to fit your needs, though. I kept mine small because I thought it would be fun to have fun little sassy hats for the kids, and this made it much simpler to do which is great when you want to create something fun but don't have a lot of time.

Because the template is round, I HAD to use a round piece of paper, and went with Blue Moon from the Vintage Moon collection. The beautiful thing about this paper is that all you'd need to do is cut it in half and you'd have two perfect cones with scalloped edges. Perfect! But for this project, again, I wanted tiny hats, so I turned it over and traced my template on the back.

If you wanted to make a short and wide hat, you could just extend the lines as I did there and trim that small section out.

After you trim your shape you wrap it until you get the desired cone shape. Then adhere. I then attached some crepe paper ribbon to the bottom, but you could use ribbon, or make a ruffle yourself with patterned paper.

For the front of my hat, I simply used a circle punch on a piece of Cutie Pie from the Sweet Cakes line, and then used the negative from that circle to trace a circle on the back of a piece of Hollow Moon from the Vintage Moon line. Using pinked scissors, I then trimmed a little outside the black circle so that when I layered it you would see the pinked edges.

After I was finished, I added some Making Memories tiny black alphas, and used Press-ons for the date. I then finished it off with a button and some Karen Foster floss. I attached this to the cone with a pop dot.

For the top I thought I'd have fun with curlicues.

To make them, simply trim your scraps to approximately 1/4 inch thickness. I used several papers from the Vintage Moon line.

After you have made your strips, you simple run them under the sink until they are wet, and then wrap them around a pencil. Don't get them too wet or pull them too tight or they will break. When you are finished it should look something like this:

I had these laying on a cookie sheet. I then whisked them away to my bedroom and set them partially on the heater vent. I left them there for several hours because you need them to dry before you work with them. I ended up letting this batch sit overnight.

When you are ready to work with them, simply punch a small circle, I think this one is about 1 1/2 inches, and begin adhering some of the strips.

After attaching about 4 of them, I took my cone, turned it over, and poked the curls through the top. The circle is bigger than the hole at the top of the cone, so it will stay inside with the ends of your curls. I then attached a few more strips until I got the desired effect.

After I was finished I gave some of my curls a little haircut, and then voila, a hat was made. To finish it off I punched a hole on each side and threaded a ribbon. I then bribed two small girls to stand still long enough for a photo, but alas, it was a cloudy day, and I forgot to change it from the 100 ISO that the camera was set on for the sledding photos I took the day before, and my photos were very dark. I shall make another attempt and I'll post it later.

I made a wand as well, but as there is only one, for now I need to keep that hidden or the kids will fight, as sweet princesses do, lol.

To create the wand I filled an empty Pixee Stix with a couple of coordinating glitter colors, pinched the top closed and taped it shut. I covered two chipboard stars with paper and more Pixee Stix glitter, attached some curls to the backside, and put them together back to back, smashing the "wand handle" between them. After it was dry I attached ribbon just underneath the star, to cover up any adhesive, etc. Very easily done!

And that's it! I just love the size of my little hats. We are going to be spending New Years with a small baby. I think she's just about 2 months old. I can't wait to put one on her and take some photos!

Have a great day! I'll be sharing my Studio Calico layouts tomorrow! I hope you had a chance to stop by! The reveal for the January kit was last night!