Tuesday, March 28, 2006



Fifteen Hats

There's been a groundswell of enthusiam about my Party Hats for Potash posts; sadly no. I have nonetheless begun making them. I have fifteen made. Generally I like to put pompoms on the hats and none of these have pompoms yet and I suppose I want to decorate them a little more.

As I said before every hat is unique. Part of that is I'm still playing with designs. Something I hope is that they can be folded to be mailed easily. These will do, but the paste makes them a little harder than I'd like. I'm using Yes! Paste and I think I need a big old bucket of it. The jars I'm buying seem too expensive, and I see online that the bigger jars are cheaper in the long run. On the other hand, it seems like such a simple product to cost so much. I've thought before that wallpaper paste would work just fine, but haven't wanted to experiment with that yet. Certainly if the production of adult paper party hats were to be offshore, the simplier and cheaper the paste the better.

Part of the pleasure of paper party hats is that they're silly. That's also why they're so good for parties. Pompous fonts of information can't help but loosen up a bit while wearing a party hat. One fear that both men and women have about hats is their heads are too big and they hate to call attention to that. These hats are sized for big heads, but it's a simple matter to pinch them in the back and hold the fold with a paper clip or a piece of tape for more modest sized heads.

I'm not sure where the regular colored tissue paper comes from, but the gold paper, which is very much like gold guilding comes from Vietnam.

I have pictures of friends in hats, but I won't publish them without permission. I looked over some and thought I could probably publish some knowing they'd never see the photos. I thought the better of that because you never know what they might hear through the grapevine. Nevertheless, I hope that people who dontate to the cause of Party Hats for Potash will send me a picture. Blogs make connections possible and I like the idea that Potash would be able to see some of the people he's connected to; and that we can see that we are connected with each other.

If you'd like a Paper Party Hat for Potash email me at bazungubucks at earthlink.net. I'll send you my address so you can mail a check. I'm sorry I'm not really set up to handle online donations. I'm suggesting a $5.00 donation per hat. It will cost about a buck to send a hat so I'd appreciate you including that too.

We are all called upon to help in so many ways that we have to make choices. Don't think too much about this one. The hats are fun, you'll want one. Remember too, each hat comes with a Bazungu Buck. Whoopee!

2 comments:

David Pohl said...

It would be very good and interesting to see all the hats together and I hope you will photograph all 100 of them.
I am sure that as you're coming up with new designs you may find some work better or are just more interesting
than others. These designs could become part of your "line". So photograph the best ones for sure. But try and photograph
all of them. There is a wonderful delight in making a series or edition of something. Over the years I've made quite a few editions of: Greeting Cards, Pohl Toys, Vastlesssmudge Cassette Releases, Paintings, Drawings, Paddle Ball Toys, Buddha Gardens, etc...
When you produce lots of something, yet each one is unique, it is the relationships between them that become interesting. One informs the others, which in turn inform other ones. Sorta like people, communities, blogs. So I say Hooray!
Make lots of hats. Make 200. You are always welcome to have a "show" of them at House of Pingting. Put me down for a hat for
Pingting. I'd like a special turban style. Don't forget to make tiny wee hats too for toddler types.

Kevin Clancy said...

I really like your party hat idea. I was reading in your post about your glue troubles. My mom is a paper mache artist, so she is always buying massive quantities of glue. She says that Home Depot has the best deal on white glue ($11 per gallon). She also said that you can get a gallon of school glue for $5-$8 a gallon. Also, I found this recipe for wheat paste (http://solarcooking.org/wheatpaste.htm) if you would want to make your own adhesive.

Good luck with the project,
Kevin