Why not make your own dog party hats?
Doing that provides a unique, personal touch not found when you use ready-made products.
This page will show you how to make the basic cone hat, top hat, and graduation cap designs.
Tools and Materials
Basic designs can be fashioned out of recycled materials at little or no cost and decorated any which way you choose.
TOOLS YOU MAY NEED:
- Stapler
- Scissors
- Pencil
MATERIALS:
- Thin, flexible cardboard pieces from a cereal box or discarded poster
- Cardboard cores from commercial toilet paper rolls or regular paper towel or toilet paper rolls
- Masking, duct or cellophane tape
- Staples
- Glue
Below are instructions to create the basics for three dog party hats – the Cone Hat, Top Hat, and Graduation Cap.
Cone Hat
Cut a rectangular piece of cardboard as follows:
For tiny dogs: 3 x 5 inches [75 x 125 mm]
For medium to large sized dogs: 4 x 6 inches [100 x 150 mm]
For giant dogs: 5.5 x 7.5 inches [14 x 19 mm]
Step 1: Fold the rectangle so the shorter edges meet; then overlap them so you can staple or tape them together.
Steps 2 and 3: Draw a circular line so that the pointy ends can be cut off.
Top Hat for Dogs
For the Hat Barrel
- Use a commercial toilet paper core, 3.5 inches [90mm] in diameter, for medium dogs and larger.
- For smaller dogs, try a toilet paper roll or paper towel roll, cut to the height you desire.
To Make the Brim
- For the hat brim, find a glass or other circular object at least 3/4 inch (18mm) wider than your cylinder.
- On a piece of cardboard, draw a circle around the rim of the glass you chose; then remove the glass.
- Take your cardboard cylinder, center it inside the circle you made with the glass, and draw a circle around it.
- Cut out the ring you have created and use it for the brim.
- Use the center circle of the ring (the crosshatched part) for the top of the hat.
- Glue the core (or another circular piece of cardboard if it didn’t come out the right size) securely to the top of your cylinder.
- Glue the brim firmly to the base of your cylinder, trim edges as needed, and your top hat is ready!
Graduation Cap for Dogs
- Use one of the cylinders as described in the Top Hat section and cut the height to 2 inches [50mm].
- Using a serrated knife to cut the roll may help it keep its shape.
- Cut a square piece of cardboard about 3/4 inch [18mm] wider than your cylinder for the top.
- Run a bead of glue along the top rim of the cylinder.
- Center the square over the cylinder and press down firmly.
Dog Party Hat Designs
Here are my ideas for dog party hat designs – these can also be used as additions to dog costumes!
Decide whether you want round or cone-shaped hats, or both.
Once you’ve got your complete set of hats ready, punch holes for the ties before you start decorating so you don’t damage your handiwork.
You can use a hole punch, needle, nail, or the point of some scissors to make the hole.
Decorations for Dog Party Hat Designs
Things you could use or make include:
Dog Party Hat Theme Ideas
- Birthday year
- Christmas
- Halloween
- Nautical theme
- Nature
- Valentine
Materials & Media
- Animal pictures or drawings
- Bones and feathers
- Bows and ribbon
- Dried flowers
- Glitter
- Hearts
- Sequins
- Stars
Nautical Theme Dog Hat
The first thing I did was to coverthe end of a roll of tape, which was bare cardboard, with a background sheet of foil.
The foil came from the insidecover of an empty dry milk box.
The outside of the cover had areas of blue writing on a white background, which were perfect for making the decorations that I glued on.
Halloween Dog Hat
Here I glued a sheet of white paper to a cone-based hat.
Since it was close to Halloween, the local paper had some witches, pumpkin and bat pictures.
You could also draw your own…
Bone Themed Hat
On our walks around the camping area, I would occasionally find little skeletons. After a while, I had quite a collection.
In this case, I decided to leave the cardboard roll uncovered and glue the bones right onto the hat.
Mother Goose or Aesop’s Fables
I had a box of colored pencils and covered this cone with some white paper too.
Since we had access to the Internet via satellite, I was able to find a picture of this fox’s head and copy it. Then I added some planets, moon and a star just because that’s what came to mind at the time.
With this fox, I could have added grapes instead to illustrated the Aesop’s Fable, “The Fox and the Grapes.”
Woodsy or Nature Theme
As you can see from the far right hat in the top photo, you can use pine cones and twigs to make dog party hats that won’t cost you anything except glue.
ADDING WRITING
In this case, I added a dog’s name – Rex – and that’s something you could add to any of the above hats. You could also use markers or glitter glue to embellish your hats with dog names or to write Happy Birthday, etc.
Well, here’s wishing you a good dog party or a fun time at your next dog costume parade!