DIY Star Spangled & Tie Dyed Patriotic Ball Cap

Now I really like the Fourth of July and I really like tie dye and I really like all things blingy including glitter and rhinestones. BUT, there can be such a thing as too much bling, at least for me. You see, I like to fade into the background. And an insanely bedazzled ball cap says “Look at me, over here!”

And I’ve seen lots of caps that I really like. Ones that I’d buy but never wear. So I decided to invest a few bucks in a decorate it yourself type of thing and bust out the tie dye, fabric paint and rhinestones. In the end, I’ve got a fantastically me, totally patriotic ball cap to cover my head and help keep my hair out of my face tomorrow.

For this project you will need:

• White ball cap
• Tie dye in red and blue
• Fabric paint and a paint brush
• Star paper punch
• Masking tape
• Wax paper or freezer paper
• Scissors
• Rhinestones & Setter
• Trash bag, plastic, etc. to protect your work surface

Here is my plain old white cap on top of my prepared work surface. Take your cap and run it under some water to help remove any weird chemicals on it and help with the blur when the red and blue meet.

Mix your tie dye according too the package directions and squeeze the red onto the portion of the cap that covers your head. Take your time and work as carefully as you can. You can see the little dots of red on my brim? Apparently I got some red dye particles on my faucet and when I turned the water on to rinse my cap they came flying out. It’s no biggie, but you might clean the tap to make sure this doesn’t happen to something important or someone’s hands.

Apply the blue dye to the brim. Now see how the dye is soaking up into the red. Don’t panic yet. It’s very possible that it might fade to be hardly noticeable (and it did).

Use paper towels as necessary to clean up excess dye and prevent too much blue from getting onto the red.

Place the ball cap into a zipper bag and allow to sit for at least 4 hours. I typically like to let my tie dye sit 24 hours but since this is for the Fourth, I didn’t have that much time.

Rinse your ball cap really well (when the water runs completely clear when the cap is squeezed) and hang to dry. I undid the velcro and attached my cap to a lawn chair and left over night. This morning it was totally dry and ready to go.

Stick some masking tape onto the waxy side of freezer paper or wax paper. Use your star punch to make little star shaped stencils.

Cut the stars out individually.

Peel the backing away and stick the stencil onto the brim of the cap.

Place the stencils as you like, I went with a falling stars type of thing.

Take your white fabric paint and daub inside of the stencils. Now I kind of got off track and started painting the stars which is not the way to stencil something. Bounce the paintbrush up and down rather than brushing across to help prevent any bad edges (which I had a few).

I prefer to remove stencils while the paint is still wet. Do so very carefully and try not to smudge the paint or get it on an unpainted area of the cap. Allow the paint to fully dry.

Attach your rhinestones as you please. I used one near every star and then a few others to fill in awkward empty space. I used the stones to cover up the worst of the blobs that happend from my poor stenciling effort.

And there’s the brim. I love this cap because it’s definitely patriotic without being too over the top for me. Plus, it’s tie dyed and in my world, tie dye is always good for bonus points!

Oh, and it is definitely worth mentioning, I couldn’t locate what my ball cap was made out of and assumed that it was 100% cotton. Because of the way the cap DIDN’T take the dye, it’s pretty safe to say that there are some manmade fibers in the content. Try to find a 100% cotton cap for the best dye job.

Do you have big plans for the Fourth?