A DIY Flower Hat for Summer + Behind the Scenes of a Photo Shoot

One of the interesting things about being a blogger is that you can kind of create your own rules when it comes to content. As long as your audience is up for the journey. If you feel like doing a room makeover – boom, there it is. If you want to make a pair of DIY work tables for your studio – no problem. And if you happen to want to stretch your legs in the styling department, you can do that too. Ah, blogging is fun. Isn’t it?

Since I’ve been working on the latter more and more recently, with some shoots more focused on fashion styling, I thought I’d share my most recent one. Which also just so happens to include another passion of mine – flowers! I teamed up with Uber, a ride request app available in over 500 cities around the world (that I use all the time), to share a behind the scenes peek at what I’ve been up to, and maybe (just maybe) I’ve included an obligatory flower shot or two.

Since Jeff and I share just one car between us, I use Uber a lot when I need to run errands during the day if Jeff has the car. It took some getting used to, with scheduling, especially on shoot days. But now that we have it down, it’s really easy. Even when he needs the car last minute, which actually happened LITERALLY on the day of this shoot. Jeff popped by the studio (he works walking distance), so he could grab the car for some last minute errands before our trip tomorrow. Which left, Amelia, Kathryn, and I without a car for the shoot!

So, we all hopped in an uberX (which is what I mostly use around town because it’s affordable and super easy for quick trips ALSO super convenient / reliable). I picked up some flowers on the way and whipped up a bouquet in the car. Then, put together the DIY flower hat while Kathryn and Amelia were taking non-hat related photos. Ah, the power of multi-tasking. 🙂

When we were ready to head back to the studio, after the shoot, I pulled up one of my saved places (the studio) and had an uberX pick the three of us up, along with my styling cart that I take everywhere with me. If you don’t know about saved places, you should totally give it a whirl. Basically, if you request rides to or from one or two addresses, you can just save the locations as favorite places. You can save one favorite place for Home and one for Work. And then it’s quick to pull up whenever you need a ride.

ALSO, totally side note. But it’s worth noting…. Literally, everyone makes fun of me and calls me a mom when I have my wheelie cart, but I don’t care how old it makes me sound or look to have one. That thing is seriously handy on shoots! It’s on wheels guys! I CAN BE COOL. I SWEAR. 🙂

So what was this shoot all about anyway?! The hat, of course. 🙂 I am obsessed with hats, but even more so than normal rn because we’re about to head somewhere tropical for a week. And I felt like it was appropriate to put a little DIY hat thingy together to celebrate. Cool? Cool!

DIY Flower Hat for Summer

You can add fresh flowers to pretty much any hat with a similar shape, but I especially love wide brim hats for this look. I found it easiest to create a wire ring (with floral wire) slightly larger than the crown of the hat and then add flowers to that wire – securing them with more floral wire, before adding it to the hat. Think of it as a floral band that scoots down over the top of the hat. So easy!

Fresh flowers like the coral peonies and pincushion proteas I used won’t last long FYI. So, if you want something that’s long lasting, a good quality fake flower would be your best bet. BUT if you’re in it for the photos, fresh flowers will be perfect.

Photography Amelia Tatnall Lawrence
Model Kathryn Kelly
Styling Brittni Mehlhoff

I’ll be sharing more photos from this shoot soon, with clothing details, etc. There were a lot of pics to go through. Let me know what you think!

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This post is in partnership with Uber. All opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that help keep Paper & Stitch running.