SmallRiniLady used Worbla Mesh, Finest and Black Art to create this adorable jester hat, with the details laser cut! She shared the process below.
I love Mini hats, so I’m making my own mini jester hat for my HarleyQuinn outfit
I wanted my hat to include her signature diamond pattern and some white bubble lace similar to her 90’s collar. I built up my design using Microsoft Expressions and imported it to a SVG file.
Because my hat doesn’t need to fit “perfect” I scaled to approx. 10 inches in width. I used an Epilog Helix laser cutter to cut my pieces. The cuts came out smooth, but with a little bit of burnt marks on the edge.
I found it hard to adhere the Worbla TranspArt with the other worbla types so I ended up switching out the 4th panel with another Worbla FinestArt piece.
My pieces are all cut and ready for assembly. Let’s start forming our flat Worbla into a hat.
To give my jester points a nice rounded shape I looked for a ball shape mold to use, that happened to be a foam head. To get matching pieces symmetrical I would form the adjacent pieces on the left/right hemisphere.
As I attach the edges together I reinforce the seam lines with thin strips of Worbla.
While working on this I realized my jester points would be too skinny with my current pieces so I cut out an additional third segment for some width.
Back to the foam head for some forming and giving it a lip to attach to the inside of the side pieces.
Time to add some color; acrylic paints, sparkle glitter, bead glitter, and glass glitter.
I want it to be obvious that the checkboard pattern is indeed cut through instead of just a fancy paint job, so I used a bright white on the inside. For the outside I painted a base coat of red and black and covered them using the different glitter types.
Time to build my lace.
After some experimentation I learned. Avoid heating thin pieces as it will sag, lose its shape, and break (you can see on the left two floral elements). Larger elements will be more stable so heat activing it and laying the fragile pieces on top with added pressure to ensure that the position is secured together. Once you know the two pieces are connected add additional heat to guarantee the bond is throughout both surfaces.
I painted lace trim base with white acrylic and used a dry paint method to add the black for dimension.
To attach the lace I heated up both the back of the lace and the bottom edge of the hat PLUS big strips of worbla reinforcements in the inside to secure the lace through the all those layers of *sparkles*
Last to add some soft elements, I’m using fluffy pompons to decorate the tips of my jester points.
My wig is actually three pieces. The main wig plus two pony tail clips. The hat sits securely over one of the pony tails.
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