Chloe just had her Minnie Mouse themed 3rd birthday party and I wanted to share how I made ears for the event. What better party toy & favor than Mickey & Minnie Mouse ears at a Minnie Mouse birthday party?
I had set out to buy some. I had snagged a pair long ago in the dollar bins at Target – long before Chloe announced that she wanted this theme for her birthday party (it was a toss up between Minnie & Cinderella for a long time). They no longer had any which left me with the junky cardboard option for nearly $3/piece or decent ones for $8/piece. Love Chloe, love her friends, love throwing over-the-top parties, but I also love not being broke. So… I set out to MAKE some. Can’t be that hard, right? Really it wasn’t.
The hardest part was actually finding inexpensive, plain, black kids headbands. The cheapest ones I found were actually princess headbands for 3 for $2. I may have pealed back one of them in the store to make sure that was black under there. I also bought 3 sheets of stiff black felt and some polka-dot ribbon. The only other thing you need is a pattern (link below), scissors, and a hot glue gun.
First, we unwound the princess ribbons from the headbands. My husband was installing some software on his computer so I was able to get him to do this while he baby-sat the install & while I cut out ears.
I used this pattern for 4th of July Minnie Mouse headbands. I actually only used the “front ears” since these were party favors. If you use the back of ears, you will need more felt that I used. Being careful with placement, I got 10 ears (enough for 5 headbands) out of each sheet of felt.
Next, lay a strip of hot glue on each of the 3 tabs on each ear and wrap it around the headband to the back of the ear.
Then, on about half, I hot glued red and white bows between the ears. The bows are two pieces. I secured the two loops first, then wrapped the center piece of the bow around both the loop part of the bow and the headband; then secured with hot glue.
I mixed and matched the ribbons for a but of extra fun.
It took me roughly an hour to do 15 of these and they were a hit at the party!
