Hello everyone! Today I am bringing you a tutorial I am EXTREMELY excited about. I’m going to show you how to make Minnie Mouse ears at home! DIY Minnie Mouse ears are perfect when you want to absolute BEST accessory for your outfit for your upcoming trip. You can make virtually any themed ears you want, depending on the fabric and colors you use. They can be personalized just to you, and the best part in my opinion? They’re cheap, easy to make, and usually cause less of a headache than the park ears!
I’ve been making Minnie Mouse ears to sell in my Etsy shop for quite a few years now, and it’s one of those crafts that only gets better with time. Over the years I have found the best method for making ears that look professional and well done. Feel free to tweek this tutorial to fit your personal style choices.
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Supplies
- Disney fabric of your choice. If you want to make more “basic” ears you can use whatever patterned fabric you’d like. Floral, abstract, plain, sparkly – the choice is yours! For this particular tutorial I’ll be using Lady and the Tramp themed fabric that I believe I got on Amazon!
- Sequined fabric or felt. This will be used to wrap your headband, as well as to make the bow. Make sure it is on the thinner side, it’ll be nearly impossible to wrap the headband using a thick felt fabric! Amazon has many choices for sparkly tablecloth runners that you can use, but I also really like the special occasion fabrics from Hobby Lobby.
- Bias tape. This will be used to hide the edges of the wrapping on your headband and give the ears a more professional look. I prefer the 1/2 width.
- A plain headband. You can get these in bulk on Amazon or for relatively cheap at Hobby Lobby. I like the Hobby Lobby ones because they come in neutral colors that are easy to cover with fabric, and they don’t hurt my head!
- Foam sheets that you can use to cut out templates for sewing and for the ear inserts. I prefer the white ones because if your fabric is a little sheer, you don’t want a colored foam to be seen through the fabric.
- 2 jars/cans/containers with round tops of varying sizes (these will be used to make our ear templates)
- A good pair of fabric scissors
- Sharpies or fabric pencil to make notations for cutting and sewing
- A sewing machine. My personal machine is the Brother Project Runaway electric sewing machine and I absolutely love it. Super easy to use for beginners!
- Matching thread and bobbin
- Measuring tape
- Hot glue gun and extra glue sticks
- Plain white stuffing material
Getting Started
Select a headband and choose the fabric you’ll be using to cover the band. I prefer something stretchy, but not too thick. You want to be able to manipulate the fabric to fully cover the headband.
Use the measuring tape and measure out the length of the headband. Take that length and add 1 inch to the length, and then measure out a strip using that length with 1 inch width.
Begin gluing the fabric to the headband, leaving about 1/2 inch of fabric hanging off the edge of the headband. Go slowly, gluing sections on little by little to prevent the glue from hardening too quickly. Make sure you center the headband on the middle of the strip of fabric so you can neatly glue the sides down after it’s attached.
Once you have glued the fabric to the headband, fold the edges on the inside of the band and glue. If they don’t completely cover the inside of the band, DON’T WORRY! You’ll be covering that with the bias tape!
Once the insides are all glued down, clean up the edges and fold the remaining 1/2 inch of fabric over. Glue in place, making a nice clean edge on the side of the band.
Cleaning Up the Band
Take the bias tape and measure using the same method you used to create the fabric strip above. For this one I selected a fun wavy pattern, but any bias tape that matches your design will do!
Give yourself an extra inch of tape, just to be on the safe side. Using your hot glue gun, slowly glue the tape to the inside of the headband, covering up the edges of the fabric. Again, go slowly to assure the glue doesn’t dry.
Viola! The first part of your ears is DONE!
Creating Your Templates
Next, we’ll have to make the ears themselves. The first thing is to create the pattern for the ears. In order to achieve this, I located two containers in my kitchen that had rounded tops. You want to aim for something about 4 inches in diameter, and 3 inches in diameter for the smaller of the two. These will be used to make the pattern for the fabric, and the pattern for the sewing line. They’re YOUR ears, though – pick whatever size you think suits your design the best!
Trace your circles on the foam and cut them out, then cut the bottom edge off in a curve pattern. The end goal is to have one circle that is larger than the other one.
Sewing Your Ears
Trace the larger of the two ear patterns onto the back side of your fabric. Make sure you’re particular about where you place your circle! I strategically traced them over designs of Lady and Tramp, so when I sew the ears together, that will be the fabric on the front of the ears. If you just trace wherever on your fabric, you may cut off the main parts of your design. No one wants ears with a decapitated Disney character, or a pattern with words cut off, making it illegible!
Use the smaller pattern to trace a second line on the fabric. This will be your sewing guide line.
Cut out your ears along the larger line and head to the sewing machine!
Using just a simple stitch, start sewing the two pieces of fabric together. Go slow and stick to the sewing line, taking care to make sure you stay just under the line if you marked with a Sharpie like I did. This will assure you don’t see any part of the green on the other side of the fabric once you flip it over.
Turn the ears inside out. Now you’re ready to stuff the ears!
Assembling the Ears
First, take the SMALLER pattern for the ears that you cut earlier. Create another identical foam ear. These will be the inserts for your ears when you stuff them, to help hold their shape.
Next, trim the foam to fit in the ears and then use the stuffing to fill in the gaps. Make them as stuffed as you want, or use as little stuffing as you want. It’s up to you! I used about 3-4 small quarter sized clumps in each ear.
Next, take your hot glue and began to close up the ears. Fold each edge of the ear TWICE to hide any frayed edges, completely closing up the ear.
Repeat on both ears.
To get the placement right on the headband, I use a pair of previously purchased ears and lay my ears on top of them. This helps me make sure I don’t place the ears too far apart from each other.
Use the hot glue to attach each ear to the headband. Almost done!
Making the Bow
Here is where you have a bit of wiggle room! For this particular design I used a piece of scrap fabric I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby that happened to match some of the colors in the Lady and the Tramp fabric. I saw it and as soon as I did, I KNEW I had to use it for these ears!
Depending on how big you want to make your bow, cut a rectangle about 6 inches long and 3 inches wide. Again, you can do whatever size you want depending on how you want the bow to look. I usually do different size bows for all my ears to spice things up.
Don’t worry if it doesn’t look very even. The edges will all be folded so it won’t matter!
Fold over all the edges of the rectangle, using either hot glue to secure them or sew down the edges. Then fold the rectangle in half, again using hot glue or stitches to keep it in place. Don’t fold the two edges OVER each other, but meet them in the middle.
Use hot glue or sew all the edges closed, so there are no more openings. Turn the rectangle upside down and pinch it in the middle. Look at that – you have a big, puffy bow now!
Use a piece of fabric, a few inches long, to wrap and secure the bow in place.
Use the remainder of that fabric piece to wrap around the headband, thus attaching the bow to the band. Take the hot glue to secure it in place.
And just like that, you have a handmade pair of Minnie Mouse ears!
Helpful Tips
- I LOVE to look at the scraps bin at my local Hobby Lobby. Usually I’ll found a good amount of fabric for my bows there, as people are always buying the sparkly fabric for projects. The end of the yard scraps are often discounted but still have PLENTY of fabric left to make many pairs of ears! Additionally you may find inspiration in some of the patterned fabrics! I found a honey bee pattern at Hobby Lobby and instantly knew I had to make Winnie the Pooh ears.
- Don’t be afraid to get creative! When I couldn’t find Sorcerer Mickey inspired fabric, I decided to go a different direction and actually painted the moon and stars on the blue background of my ears. Not liking how your bow is turning out? Try tulle, or maybe ribbon and see how it goes! Add some gemstones! Puffy paint! There’s no limit to what you can do to make the ears truly your own.
- If they get dirty, don’t throw them in the washing machine – simply hand wash using a washcloth.
I hope you all enjoyed my DIY Minnie Mouse ears tutorial! This is just a baseline – you’ll eventually start creating your own style!
For more of my DIY Minnie Mouse ears, check out my Etsy shop! And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter! When you do, you’ll get my FREE WDW Planning Checklist as a thank you, and you’ll receive updates whenever I make new posts.
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