Eugenia Kim Inspired Beach Hat
23.6.16
Top - Zara (it's on sale now!)
Bracelet - J Crew (similar)
I could literally see myself in this hat! Piña Colada in hand, floating around on my doughnut beach float while the sun shines down onto the clear blue sea - picture perfection!
Are you seeing it too? Who could resist?
However when I found the "Sunny" beach hat on Eugenia Kim's website - it came with a whopping price tag of $485.00!! Safe to say, it was way outside my budget. My vision was slowly beginning to disappear and I was brought back to my room, sitting beside the window, cloudy rain falling from the sky.
However when I found the "Sunny" beach hat on Eugenia Kim's website - it came with a whopping price tag of $485.00!! Safe to say, it was way outside my budget. My vision was slowly beginning to disappear and I was brought back to my room, sitting beside the window, cloudy rain falling from the sky.
Then I got to thinking - why don't I try to make one myself! What better to do on a rainy afternoon?
It is surprisingly simple, and it looks incredibly similar - almost identical. You can even customize it yourself!
Let's get started - we're already one step closer to making those sunny dreams a reality!
I picked up a wide-brimmed beach hat from Forever 21 - this is a similar one. The wider the better, because that will allow you to have plenty of space for your catch phrase.
You will need some sequin ribbon (I bought 3 meters worth, and I had quite a lot left over). This depends on how long and big you want your phrase to be. You can get really creative with this. I used black ribbon, but I think turquoise or orange would be so much fun too!
I also chose the easier route and use glue gun for mine. However, if you wanted to, you could also choose to hand saw the ribbon onto the hat. Just make sure you get a longer and thicker needle that will be able to pierce through your hat.
Finally, you will need a pencil (as it doesn't leave as dark a mark as a pen) to draw out the guide on your hat.
Now - it's time to get creative and think of a super fun catch phrase to put on your beach hat. I went with "Vitamin Sea" - a cute little play on words, and perfect for a beach holiday.
Here are some more options:
I started out by using some painter's tape just to section off the part of the beach hat where I wanted to start and finish the stencil. This gave me a better idea of how to space out the words, and how wide to make each letter.
Next, I took a piece of paper a wrote out my phrase in cursive letters. It's great to do this as practice before you go onto the actual hat, and it lets you play around with the look of the phrase. You could even research some fun fonts online, and try to mimic them for your hat!
Once I was happy, I used the pencil to start creating the stencil. I used the ridges of the beach hat as sort of a guide, counting the ridges to ensure that my upper case and lower case letter matched up each time. Think of it as those elementary school writing books with the different lines to help guide the size of your letters!
After completing the stencil - it's time to get glue gunning! Make sure your glue gun is nice and hot, so that the sequin ribbon can be secured properly.
Just a note, when using the ribbon - make sure to glue it facing upwards. What I mean is, when you take a close look at the ribbon you will notice that on one side the string connecting each sequin is visible. This is the side you want to glue down. On the other side, this string is not as visible, and this is what you want facing upwards. This side is also a little bit shinier.
I started in small sections, pipping out a bit of glue and then placing down the sequins. This is surprisingly easy to do, and the ribbon is very easy to work with to get nice curves in the cursive letters.
Continue along, gluing and adjusting the ribbon. Once you get to the end of a word, you will need to cut the ribbon, glue the end securely and move over, following your stencil.
If the phrase you pick has letters with dots on top, or lines through them - leave these until the end. Go back and cut a small piece of ribbon to form a line, then glue it on top. For the dots, I separated some sequins from the ribbon, then I placed a small dab of glue above the letter, and placed 3 three individual sequins in a circle (with each overlapping one another).
Once you are finished, go back and secure any areas that look a little bit loose, and clean up any excess glue.
Voila!! Complete! Your own personalized beach hat, how cute is that?
I'm sure you will get plenty of compliments on it - and when you tell people that you in fact made it, you will most definitely get some seriously envious beach-goers!
What's that? - Why it's the clouds? They're starting to part - revealing that glorious sun!
See? I told you. We're making those sunny dreams come true!
0 comments