How to Make a Glitter Cowgirl Hat Fascinator

Carolyn J. Braden • 3 Minute Read  

How to Make a Glitter Cowgirl Hat Fascinator

Every year I make a fascinator. I’ve been doing it for many, many years as I’m from the home of the Kentucky Derby, Louisville, Kentucky. While there are many ways to make Derby hats and fascinators, I’ve developed an easy way to create my own fascinator base that works for many styles. My bridal fascinator gets saved on my Pinterest account all the time. Read on to learn how to make my latest version, a glitter cowgirl fascinator.

My Electric Cowgirl full look

If you don’t know what a fascinator is, it’s a head covering that is a bit smaller than a hat, but is worn on the head via a clip, headband or comb. I make most of my fascinators using a headband, as they stay on my head quite well. If they are on the heavy side, I will pin the headband to my head with a bobby pin.

You can also make fascinators with sinamay fabric, like I did in my Youtube tutorial below:

A fascinator that made history was when Princess Beatrice of York wore a very interesting fascinator to the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It sold on eBay as an auction for charity for $131,560.00. Read more about the history of fascinators on the Vanity Fair website.

My cowgirl look was part of a costume design I created for myself

I think hats and fascinators are in my creative blood because I loved seeing them every year that I watched the Kentucky Derby with my grandma, my Nani. She loved watching the Derby horses while I fully enjoyed watching all the hats and the fashion of all the Derby go-ers. Forbes wrote a great article talking about the history of Derby hats and you can read it on their site by clicking here. The hats have many ties to British and French racing traditions.

The real me, feeling happy my fascinator design is complete!

Many Derby go-ers will opt to wear a fascinator to the Oaks races (which occur the day before The Kentucky Derby, on a Friday, which is slightly less formal than Derby) and will wear a full feather or flower adorned hat for Derby (a more formal event day), which falls on the first Saturday in May every year.

The Derby seems to get bigger every year, so many locals attend races that occur on the Thursday the week of Derby and will often wear fascinators on that day too. Read all about the events at a place I frequented as a child, The Kentucky Derby Museum, on their website. My Senior prom was even at the museum!

I rhinestoned up my brows too for the full look

While I love hats, they are usually a bit harder to make, as you need hat forms and many other tools to make a proper hat. A fascinator can be crafted quite easily from things you’d find at a craft store. Here’s how I made my glitter cowgirl fascinator using things I found on Amazon and at craft stores. I’ve included links to buy supplies on Amazon.

My full look is very colorful, but the fascinator can be worn with a black dress to tone it down

I wore this as part of a character I created and you can read about her and her personality in my article Goodbye Mobwife, Hello Electric Cowgirl. You could easily take this into the “real world” by wearing it with a simple black dress. I like this one on Amazon.

Fascinator Supplies:

My mini cowgirl hat was originally for one of my puppets!

Directions:

1—The first thing I did was spray paint the cowgirl hat with a turquoise spray paint. I sprayed on about two layers of paint (I did this outside, in a well-ventilated area, on a piece of scrap cardboard) until the original red color was covered. I let it dry completely (about 24 hours) before moving onto the next step.

My rhinestone kit came with many colors

2—Next, I added a line of glue around the brim of the hat and used a wax tipped pencil to pick up iridescent tiny rhinestones and place them onto the glue.

I used tiny flatback rhinestones for this project

3—I started with one line and kept gluing rhinestones until they covered the brim.

This process is tedious but worth it

4—After the covered the brim, I started gluing them up the sides of the hat and kept going until the entire hat was covered in rhinestones.

It slowly came together!

5—The gluing of the rhinestones onto the hat is a very tedious process, but the overall finished look was exactly what I wanted. It took me weeks to complete, as I worked on other projects at the same time to give myself a break from it. I allowed it to dry for 24 hours before going onto the next step.

My fascinator base supplies

6—For the fascinator base, I took a lid off a plastic food container and set it onto the white felt and traced out a circle using a pencil. My circle was about 6-7 inches in diameter. I cut out a second felt circle out of the glitter felt.

You do not have to use glitter felt for the second circle. I only used it because I wasn’t sure if all of it was going to be covered when I added the feathers, and I wanted it to look nice in the event you could still see the base in my final design.

I placed the plain white felt on the bottom of the headband

7—I placed the plain white felt on the bottom of my headband, then I added some hot glue and placed the glitter felt on top, basically “sandwiching” the headband between the two.

The fascinator base

This created a nice circle base for the fascinator. See me create the base in my wedding fascinator tutorial in my YouTube video below or via my channel @carolynjbraden:

8—I then started adding the feathers. I added hot glue to the top of the base and started laying on the feathers one at a time. I then hot glued on a simple bow I made using the glitter tulle and then started gluing on the longer feathers. I added the rhinestone studded hat and kept adding more feathers.

My fascinator design, starting to come together

I set my fascinator on a mannequin head base, which made the process of making it much easier.

The mannequin head makes a fascinator easier to decorate

9—I added enough feathers until I had it the way I wanted it to look. This project, as many of these types of creative projects, need a creative mindset, but whatever you end up creating, will be perfect because it’s your own.

I love how it turned out!

I never can create the exact same thing over and over, and that’s the artist in me. It’s a bold look but would be fab at a Carnival event in Rio, to a Derby party, or anytime you want to smile and have a fun night out. Alter my design to fit your style.

If you loved this article, we know you’ll love this one too: How to Create a Mobwife Aesthetic

Carolyn J. (C.J.) Braden is the owner of Carolyn’s Blooming Creations is a regular contributor and editor for CBC. She has been featured in numerous media publications such as InStyle Magazine, on HGTV, on Bustle.com, and more. She is the author of the books Georgia McMasters in Amethyst Lake Cemetery, How To Be Yourself: 3 Ways To Help You Being You, and the illustrator for the children’s book Bridging Connections. She is a former classroom teacher that now dedicates her life to educating others on how to live their most healthy, creative and happy life. Learn more about her visiting our About Us page.