Remember this hat I found at Goodwill recently?

I gave it a makeover! As you can see, I added a piece of black velvet ribbon and a tortoiseshell buckle. The ribbon is secured in several places with a couple of stitches, so I can easily switch it up later if I decide I want to give it a new look.

So the moral of this story is, if you come across a cool hat that needs an update, don’t be afraid to try to put a little bit of work into it. Even if your hat comes with a ribbon or leather piece around the brim, you can probably pretty easily replace it if you want to change it up. It’s easier if the ribbon/trim is attached with stitches, in which case you can use a seam-ripper to remove them. If it’s glued on you may still be able to carefully pull it off, but keep in mind that whatever you replace it with will need to cover the glue residue. That was a limiting factor for my hat, since as you can see in the “before” photo, it had glue marks when I got it. But covering the glue marks with a wider piece of ribbon wasn’t a problem, and now I have a great fall hat.