How to make an usherette hat

I spent a sunny afternoon making usherette hats for the Cheap Thrills – Zero Budget Film Festival in Sheffield.  It’s not as risqué as it sounds, it’s a community festival of short entertaining films made with zero or hardly any budget by professional and amateur film makers.

I looked for inspiration and How To’s online and came up with nothing that suited the situation.  So I set about with a few Camembert boxes and a handful of haberdashery to see what I could do.  Here’s a simple picture story showing how to make the hats – should you ever need to!  You will need – Camembert boxes or similar (each box makes 2 hats), red material (enough to cover each box), felt (I used yellow). gold braid (1.25 – 1.5m per hat), buttons (2 per hat), gold paint, glue, double sided sticky tape, needle and thread, scissors, 50cm length of 5mm elastic per hat.

What the pictures don’t show is the secret fixing device.  This is where the elastic comes in.  Tie a loop in one end of a length of elastic and fix it round one of the buttons.  When you fit the hat use the elastic to secure it by placing it under the chin, or under your hair at the back of the neck, then secure the other end round the other button.  Trim elastic.

To get that perky usherette look take the gold braid under your chin and tie a bow that sits at cheekbone height to one side of your face.  Okay – get your torch and go sell that popcorn!

UPDATE – This post is getting quite a lot of hits. Thank you , and if you do make a hat I’d love to see a pic!