Christmas Hat Template

How to measure a head

Use a soft tape measure, or a piece of string you then lay along a ruler. Go round the widest part of the head: across the forehead about a finger's width above the eyebrows, just above the ears, and round the bump at the back. Keep it snug but not tight, and measure twice. Type the number in centimetres, or switch to inches. The page adds 1 cm of ease, so a 52 cm head gets a hat that opens to 53 cm and sits on the head instead of squeezing it. Thick hair, braids or a bun can add 1 to 2 cm; measure over them.

No tape and no child to hand? Pick an age. The child sizes are the medians of the WHO Child Growth Standards (head circumference-for-age, boys and girls averaged); the adult sizes are the means from Bushby and others, “Centiles for adult head circumference”, Archives of Disease in Childhood, 1992. Real heads spread about 1.5 cm either side of these, which is why a measurement is better.

How to make the paper hat

1. Print at “Actual size” or 100 %, never “Fit to page”, and check the 50 mm bar at the foot of each sheet with a ruler. Thin card (160–200 g/m²) holds its shape best; plain printer paper works for a party hat that is worn once.
2. Tape the cone together. A cone for a 54 cm head is about 50 × 34 cm flat, so it prints across several sheets. Each sheet tells you its row and column. Trim the dotted left or top edge of a sheet, lay it on the blue dashed strip of its neighbour so the numbered round marks sit exactly on each other, and tape it at the back.
3. Cut out and roll. Cut round the black line, fold the grey glue tab back on the blue line, and roll the cone so the other straight edge covers the tab. Glue or tape it from the inside. The opening is now your head size + 1 cm.
4. Add the band. The band is cut into pieces when it is longer than the sheet: glue piece to piece where the letters match (A on A), then wrap it round the bottom of the cone over the dotted line and close it at the back. For the elf hat, glue the ears' grey strips behind the band first, one each side.
5. Finish the tip with the paper pom-pom (Santa) or the bell (elf), or a cotton-wool ball. A strip of double-sided tape inside the band stops a hat sliding on fine hair.

How to sew the fleece or felt hat

1. Choose “Sew” and your seam allowance. Every piece shows two lines: cut on the solid black line, sew on the red dashed one. The allowance is the same width all round, curves and corners included.
2. Cut 2 hat pieces (red fleece for Santa, green for the elf), 1 cuff (white fleece or faux fur), 1 pom-pom circle, and for the elf 4 ears (turn the paper over for two of them). Fleece stretches more one way than the other: put that stretch across the hat, along the cuff.
3. Sew the hat: the two pieces right sides together, down both long sides, leaving the bottom open. Trim the tip and turn it out. For the elf, first sew the ears in pairs round their curved edge, turn them, and tack one into each side seam about 2 cm above the bottom.
4. Sew the cuff: join the short ends into a ring, fold it in half lengthwise on the blue fold line, wrong sides together, and sew both raw edges to the hat's bottom edge. Turn the cuff up.
5. Make the pom-pom: sew a running stitch on the red line of the circle, put a small ball of stuffing in the middle, pull the thread tight, knot it and sew it to the tip.

Felt does not fray, so a felt hat can also be joined with a blanket stitch along the sewing line by hand; cut on the black line all the same, so the hat keeps its size.

Questions

Is this Santa hat template free to print, as a PDF?

Yes. There is no sign-up, no watermark and no paid version. The PDF is built in your browser on A4 or US Letter. Every sheet also saves as a 300 dpi PNG if your phone prints pictures more easily than PDFs, and the whole set of pieces saves as an SVG or DXF cut file in true millimetres for a Cricut, Silhouette or laser cutter.

How big is a Christmas hat template for kids?

As big as the child's head. For a typical 5-year-old (50.3 cm head) the Santa cone opens to 51.3 cm, stands about 31 cm tall and prints on four A4 sheets plus one sheet for the band and the pom-pom. An adult's Santa hat (57.2 cm head) stands about 35 cm. The elf hat is taller and more pointed: about 36 cm for the same 5-year-old.

Is there a free elf hat pattern to sew?

Yes: choose Elf, then Sew. You get the hat piece (cut 2), a cuff with its fold line (cut 1), a pom-pom circle and an ear pattern (cut 4), sized to the head in child or adult sizes, with a 6 mm, 1 cm or 3/8 in seam allowance. The Santa sewing pattern is the same set without the ears, with a rounder, shorter hat piece.

Can I print a hat for every child in a class?

Paste the class list into the class-set box, one name per line. Each child gets a hat with their own name on the band, and colour-in outlines let them colour the hat before it is rolled. A full cone for each child is about four sheets, so for 25 children choose “One to trace”: the cone prints once, you draw round it on coloured card, and only the named bands are printed for each child.

Which designs are there?

Six of our own: plain classic, Nordic with stars and a diamond border, stripes, gingerbread with icing waves, snowflakes, and holly leaves with berries. Each prints in colour or as black outlines to colour in. There are no characters or logos from films or brands on any of them.

Want more Christmas things to make?

The paper crown maker sizes a crown to the head the same way, and the Christmas stocking template is a full-size sewing pattern with a seam allowance and the name's letters.