The Little Hat Project
Each year people from all walks of life send hats to be auctioned through an online Facebook auction.
Milliners, felt makers, artists, wood workers, ceramicist have entered and are welcome to contribute.
The main focus is on mental health and the use of creative means to express what often words cannot do.
For A Good Cause
The project raised money in 2013 and 2014 for Rotary mental health initiatives.
In the 2016 auction, money raised will go towards the development of an app to enable the mental well-being of children and their carers when children are undergoing hospital and medical procedures. Dr. Angela Mackenzie’s widely-respected and used book, Everybody Stay Calm, offers a new set of skills to assist parents and carers to reduce the stresses of medical procedures for their children, which has also been found to facilitate recovery.
Hats for Happiness inc. has decided that monies we raise each year will go to a very specific cause at grassroots level where contributors of little hats can clearly see the impact they can have with a little hat and the sharing of a story from the heart.
Join The Project
Every year we invite people to make a smallish wearable hat which expresses feelings in some way, with an underpinning in its working of the emotions linked to mental well-being.
This is your invitation.
Imagination is the only limit on materials, which could include traditional ones, or wood, paper, wire, glass and more – you choose.
We encourage all people who work with their hands to consider joining the project, and are especially excited when men come on board. You need not be a milliner.
Each year the project addresses a different theme. Please view this years theme.
A little hat goes a long way...
In 2013, Waltraud Reiner entered the Australian Millinery Hall of Fame. She was awarded a trophy in the shape of a tiny hat block, and immediately started making little hats to fit it!
But she also wanted to share it with all the people who had helped her get to where she is today. She called out to milliners and craftspeople across the world to make little hats for the little hat block.
In 2013, she received more than 30 beautiful miniature hats, which were then sold in an auction to raise funds for mental health initiatives – a cause very close to Waltraud’s heart. The hats became the subject of an art book, Hats for Happiness, which included reflective writing from each of the hat-makers about what creativity means to their lives and well-being.