Help needed on supplies for fascinators & Hat assessories

a lot of fascinators are heavy on the tulle, or else felt, depending on the look you are going for. a lot of the little top hats would use felt (i needed felt for my witch hat fascinator last october; ended up using something else, but the felt would have been better/easier), but the barrette-ish ones tend to use more tulle and ribbon, from what i can tell.

also, remember that the little things need to stay on! ive seen both barrettes and headbands used.

good luck! when in doubt, search "fascinator" on this site--there are a lot of great ideas.

Hi Helen. Fascinators come in so many varieties. The main thing to think about is scale. I use flower hair bobbles and small quaties of lace. I look for small beads and bows and use narrow lace. Small appilques are good and if you are going for a particular theme look out for small plastic toys. The small flowers used for bridal stuff that come on wire are brilliant too
I usually use light weight stretch crushed velevet and fine stretch netting. You can pick up really cheap velvet dresses at thrift/secondhand/charity shops and you will get loads of fabric out of them. I use long bar hairclips or headbands for fitting them

Hi

I'm currently having a little think about making a small fascinator to go with a dress for my future sis-in-law's wedding. I chose a slightly japanes-y design of dress and haven't found anything on either mainstream or burlesque websites.

I reckon what I'm going to do is use a 'curl clip'/divider (like a flat 'pincer' clip hairdressers use) attached to a felt base. That seems firmer than a comb as I want to straighten my hair and wear it down. I'll make 2 layers of felt (probably roughly sewn/glue gunned together) covering the clip. Then I'm going to loop bits of satin ribbon in the colours of the dress to make petals, with a button in the middle as the centre of the flower and some loose ribbons hanging down. I'm not sure whether to make 1 big flower or make a bunch of smaller ones...obviously once made I'll attach them to the felt base.

That sounds very pretty, Squizita! You'll have to share pics when you're done.

I have made a few facinators in the past couple of months, and I like to use netting, tulle, and french netting, along with some feathers and organza ribbon. I add in some nice Swarovski crystals for extra sparkle (I think everything needs more rhinestones!) and I attach everything to a piece of felt and then hot glue that to either a headband or an alligator clip. I think the alligator clips are better at keeping things in my hair, because I have very fine straight hair and I've never had luck with combs staying in! I am thinking about trying some silk flowers and delicate feathers on my next two - I want to make matching hair pieces for my bridesmaids at my wedding in September.

I haven't found much in the way of instructions - I just sort of play around with things and see what I come up with. A glue gun is very helpful, and some felt. I get really cheap plastic headbands, ribbons, alligator clips, rhinestones, tulle, netting, flowers and feathers from Ebay or Etsy.

Just found an easy-looking how-to.

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/diy_ethic/burlesque-costumes-how-to-make-a-fascinator.php

Also this one says 'clip' but using a large feather and flower would be more of a fascinator:
http://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/Pages/Ideas/Idea.aspx?id=986

...also some ribbon ideas for embellishments:

http://www.do-it-yourself-gifts.com/how-to-make-bows.html
http://www.do-it-yourself-gifts.com/how-to-make-hair-bows.html
http://www.do-it-yourself-gifts.com/make-hair-bows.html

Hope it helps!

I have made a couple of fancy clips: once they are modded they should be up under my published projects...