Starting from Scratch IV. The Costumes: hats

In recent weeks, I have been looking at the children's song "The Ugly Bug Ball" and showing how it might be turned into a children's play. One thing has become very clear as time has gone on - the variety of characters (bugs of all shapes and sizes) and the glamour of the setting (a ball!) means colour and flamboyance are paramount.  This is going to be particularly pertinent when thinking about the costumes.

When I think about the idea of insect costumes, immediately I think: hats, masks, capes. All three of these elements are relatively simple to make and easy for kids to wear. Let's look at hats first.

In order to come up with ideas, I first find an image of what I want to create. For example, the earthworm:

Then, I scour the internet, magazines, books, photos.... looking for ideas. These are some I came up with when i was thinking about making a worm hat:

The idea can come from anywhere (a straw basket?!) but you start to slowly get an idea. In this case, I'm leaning towards a tall, coiled hat (think Madge Simpson's hair, perhaps?). The black and red of the original photo would make a very striking worm hat or we could use earthy colours and weave in a few reds and greens.

Here are some ideas for hats for other creepy crawlies from the song which I got largely from looking at Ascot hats (what better place to look for flamboyance?). No offense to the original wearers!

Materials for making hats: netting, foam backed material, papier maché, felt, tubing, bubble wrap, bin bags... You don't always need a whole hat. Sometimes a headband will do and you can always think about adding elements to existing woolly, sun or base ball hats.

Some costume-making resources:

http://www.papiermache.co.uk/
http://www.alleycatscratch.com
http://sewing.about.com/od/halloween/a/costumetricks.htm
http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/10/nosew_modular_h.html
http://artswork.asu.edu/arts/students/tb/06_05_costumes.htm
http://blog.jugglingfrogs.com/2007/10/costumes.html