My mom, my sister and I are hobby challenged. What do I mean by that? I mean, when everyone was taking up puzzles during COVID, we were failing miserably at piecing them together. When everyone was trying their hand at calligraphy back in the 2010s? We were wasting money on fancy pens that are probably still tucked in a drawer somewhere. And when everyone started picking up mahjong? Well, we haven’t even attempted that one yet.

All of this is to say that we aren’t the kind of girls who have knitting needles or embroidery thread sitting at home. We don’t dedicate our time to hobbies that I’m sure would greatly enrich our well-being—at least from what I’ve heard. But that isn’t to say that we don’t try.

For many years now, the three of us have occasionally stepped out of our comfort zones and tried the hobbies that stick for some, thanks to workshops hosted across the Capital City. We have foraged for and arranged flowers. We got our hands dirty at Baton Rouge Succulent Company. We even learned (or tried) to embroider. We may not have mastered any of those crafts, but we had so much fun doing them.

This willingness to try and fail inspired us to throw caution to the wind and join our good friend, Rebecca Milton, at artist Rachael Walker’s Mardi Gras headpiece workshop hosted by March by Shane Griffin Designs.

We went in with high hopes. How much could she actually expect us to do? Surely, we will just do a little glueing, and that will be it. Oh, how wrong we were.

Energy was up when we arrived to a Champagne cart outside of March. At 10 a.m. on a Saturday, it was time for a mimosa, despite the freezing temperatures.

As we walked in, we were instructed to grab various pieces of cardstock, both whole pieces and some cut into shapes. Overwhelm ensued. What would our color stories be? What day of our multi-day Mardi Gras marathon would we wear these creations? What outfits were we planning to wear? What on earth were we doing?

We pulled it together–somewhat miraculously. I chose a typical Mardi Gras color palette. My sister went colorful, as usual for her. My mom just chose at random—also typical for her. And Rebecca went purple. A strong start, I think.

At our spots, we were met with glue guns and scissors. I expected hot glue to be a part of my day, so unlike the amorphous cardstock shapes, this was welcome and comfortable. I can do anything through hot glue who strengthens me.

Here is where I start to black out. I tried to take notes (and photos), but let me tell you, the pace of this class did not allow. Every moment was filled with another extremely specific directive from Rachael, which I followed as best I could. We glued pre-cut petals, assembled flowers, cut our own petals and assembled our own flowers—it was a whirlwind. But Rachael? She’s a heck of a teacher. I had no faith that I could assemble intricate paper flowers, but I looked up after an hour of work, and there they were. Beautiful purple and green flowers made of cardstock and made by my own hands. I was equally shocked and impressed.

I blacked back in when “flair” was introduced. The time had come to place our flowers on our headbands, complete with armitures to allow for Mardi Gras-worthy height, and add all the fun stuff. After sweating over flower placement and asking for Rachael’s help many times, I had my base. The attention to the back of the headpiece was something I hadn’t considered until Rachael mentioned it. After all, people walk behind and in front of you, and both need to be equally fabulous, of course.

Finally, it was time for fun! I knew I wanted disco balls and plenty of them. I have a permanent disco ball in my living room, and in my opinion, there is nothing more fun than a ball of mirrors. From there, I added some beads over my ears, inspired by the headpiece Rachael had on her own head, and a few other sequined balls.

Now, we arrive at the pièce de résistance: a vintage bird Rachel sourced from an estate sale. Shout out to Rebecca for pulling this perfect, but overlooked, finishing touch from the flair table. Its light yellow feathers completed my Mardi Gras color palette and brought the whole piece together. After consulting Rachael on placement, we landed on having the bird, now fondly named “Iris,” on top of one of my disco balls. I gasped audibly.

As I placed my finished masterpiece on my head, I completely forgot about the hot glue covering my fingers. It was perfect. I truly could not believe it. And my mom, sister and Rebecca felt the same way about their Carnival creations. We even wore them to lunch. You wouldn’t believe the compliments we received.

Will we make more headpieces in the future? Are paper flowers our new hobby? Probably not—we will leave that to the professionals, aka the very talented Rachael Walker. But we laughed. We stressed. We kicked off our Mardi Gras season.

If you want to see our headpiece creations in real life, you can catch us on Royal Street on Hermes Friday. We’ll see you there!

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!