Tiny Mouse Ears - custom embroidery

My friends were married in July and shortly after came for a trip to Disneyland. As newlyweds, we joked that they should get the bride and groom mouse ears, but the new groom wasn't going for it (it takes a special kind of dude to wear those things all day).

So instead, I found these tiny versions of the mouse ears (originally keychains, but I removed the chain) and customized them as a gift.

I used a dollar bill for scale - plus, it's showing off my immense wealth. Dolla dolla billz, yo!

For the bride's hat, I sewed a veil from white organza and attached it to the crown of the hat. I also added a red bow in classic Minnie Mouse style.



But before I did that, I added the happy couple's names to the hats. Each were hand-embroidered with yellow floss, just like the real hats at Disneyland*. Due to the small size of the hats, I couldn't make it work out to use an elaborate script-font, so I just free-handed the letters in my own handwriting.





For the groom's hat, I added a top hat. The local craft store recently stopped carrying tiny top hats for dolls (the woman said they went on clearance and someone came and bought them all -- there must be a boom for dolls with top hats!), so I made my own out of black felt. Just a simple cylinder attached to a brim and then attached to the crown of the mouse ear hat.



The happy couple even sent me a picture of themselves modeling their new hats!


These were really fun to make and I've been considering adding them to my etsy shop. What do you think?


*Now that the hand-embroidery machines at Disneyland are gone (swapped for computerized models), there are also color options for custom hat embroideries but the original yellow thread-on-black hats will always hold a special place in my heart.