I have been wearing Australian Bush hats for the last several years. My first hat was loved to death. I wore it so much that the crown fell apart. After two attempts to fix it by an experienced leather worker, I finally laid it to rest. That was truly a sad day but fortunately, my oldest daughter had already given me a replacement as a Christmas gift. It is rare to see me without my hat and I even have a smooth black leather version that I call my “Sunday goin’ to meetin’s” hat. BC hats makes a great product and thus far, it is the only brand I wear.
Until today, my beloved hat has been hung on the side of my cubicle at work or worse, just tossed on the desk. Well no more! Over the last couple of days, I have created a head almost as complex as mine as a pillow for my crown. Perhaps I should give my hat a name?!? Cars are given names as they are cherished possessions, why not a hat? I challenge you all to help me name her.
I had seen tiny versions of this head around work and I knew it was available on Cricut.com’s Design Space. I searched for a while and finally found it. Once you start a new project, select insert image and search for “autodesk” under all images. There will be an image set called Human Head – 123D. This was the base for my project. The original project is only designed to stand about six inches high. With my huge head, I knew that just wouldn’t suffice. I expanded the image set so that the tallest pieces were eleven and a half inches tall, the maximum allowed on a standard Cricut 12×12 cutting mat. The problem with the file is that it starts out entirely grouped together. After un-grouping and detaching all the images, I proceeded to use the contour tool to create groups of images that would fit onto a single sheet of 12×12 cardstock. A word to the wise: each piece has numbers written on it using the Cricut Explore Air’s pen tool. Make sure you keep them on the images. When I made my head, I figured I was smart enough to just use an image from the computer to figure out where everything was supposed to be placed. That little mistake added an hour to my assembly of the head.
Once everything had been separated, I cut out all the pieces on my Cricut Explore Air. This took 8 sheets of 12×12 cardstock and about an hour of time. Next came the fun part, assembly of the 22 unmarked pieces. Fortunately I hadn’t removed all the markings and had left the part numbers. The most difficult part was getting the horizontal pieces attached to the first four vertical pieces. This took a lot of patience but when it was done, all the other pieces slid right into place. The end result….a surprisingly stable, almost life size head to hold my hat. Perhaps one day I will wrap the whole thing in paper mache to give it a bit more stability but that is a project for another day.
Now it’s your turn! Help me name my hat and send me pictures of your hatstands.
THE KILTED MAN KRAFTER 