Well summer is in full swing, it's wedding and horse racing season which means two things, classy ladies are going on Champagne benders and sticking silly things on their heads while running willy nilly to the finish line. With these parameters, I of course refuse to be left out, and had to put my own twist on the chapeau phenomenon by making a series of themed facinators to wear at events I've got coming up.
Some of my men friends have never heard of facinators, so I'll take a moment to explain- They are fancy bits of lace, ribbon and do-dads that you wear on your head, similar to a hat, but smaller. Their geographical placement, above the belt line, might make them a bit more disappointing than they sound at first, but bear with me, with the right theme in mind, we can spice them right back up to being interesting.
I've made a few of these literary inspired accessories now so putting together the "50 Shades of Grey Facinator" was so easy, I could have done it with one hand tied behind my my back. (While rolling my eyes and chewing on my bottom lip). Seriously, handcuffs on your head is hot, and not hard to do. I opted to use the toy version of the shackles both for safety's sake and they are a hell of a lot lighter and easier to attach with a glue gun. I actually got all the supplies to make the facinators from the Dollar Store, with the exception of the paint chips which I stealthily pocketed while at the paint shop. I think they actually give them away, but I like to feel sneaky even when I'm not doing anything wrong (except for not wearing underwear).
Supplies:
Plastic headband
Plastic netting or fancy tuile
50 paint chips
Plastic handcuffs
So to make: Cut a produce bag into a 8x 12" strip, scrunch one end of your "veil" together and attach to a plastic headband with hot glue. Do this over a newspaper because it's going to make a drippy mess and since your veil is made of plastic, it's going to melt a little bit. One trick is to put a bead of glue onto the headband and let it cool for about 20 seconds before pressing the netting down into it, and of course be careful, as it's going to be hot.
Fan your chips and glue one on top of the other, glue pain chip rosette onto headband and cuffs on top of that
Open a bottle of expensive Chablis and pick up the phone, maybe Christian is free for a booty call
If he's not around you can always treat yourself to more crafting, it's almost as much fun as kinky sex with a neurotic billionaire. I had a hoot making a whole horde of facinators for my upcoming trip to Las Vegas. For some I went for the straight up gambeling theme, but I wanted to do something for my book signing at The Mob Museum of Las Vegas on the 30th. I am super stoked to check the museum out, the exhibits sound spectacular, looking at both sides of the crime history, the criminal element and the law enforcement officers who fought to bring them to justice. This duality inspired me to make two special facinators, one for the gangsters with a bottle of bootleg gin and one for Johnny Law with iconic shades and a fancy pants badge, that is probably fooling no-one.
Now you might be looking at these hats and think to yourself that Ms. Demeanor has finally taken crafting too far, no one would wear something so ridiculous on their heads, but friend, you'd be wrong and I'd like to point you to the most excellent blog post on Go Fug Yourself highlighting the haberdashery hijinks at the Royal Ascot this weekend, where society dames wore two teared bird houses and gargantuan flowers on their noggins. The outfits for Lady's Day have gotten so out of hand that the Ascot officials have laid down the law this year, all together banning facinators in the royal box (no innuendo there!) but they still allow big ass hats. I remain amused and inspired.