One of my absolute favorite soulful activities is making crowns/headdresses to wear for heartfelt celebrations.  It brings out my inner-fairy and adds so much whimsy and color to any event.  I love texture, contrasting colors, and glitter.

This one is basically a paper crown with embellishments and a strong base.  Please remember that even though it is shown this way, it can so easily be tweaked and made with many diverse materials, and can be utilized in many different ceremonies, i.e. in a bonfire ceremony, a birthday party, something theatrical, or even just for a tea party photo shoot.  Adorn yourself with love!

Material List:

1. Thick floral wire
2. scissors
3. 1 pkg. of pipe cleaners (any color)
4. one package of brown paper lunch bags
5. 1 pkg. of hot glue – need about 5 large ones roughly
6. 1 small gold acrylic paint
7. 1 small “Sea Breeze” acrylic paint
8. around 10 large paper flowers for each color – blue and pink – 1″ diameter
9. around 10-15 small paper gold flowers – one or two whites if you’d like – 1/2″ diameter
10. long piece of 3/4″ woven cream trim
11. about 12″ of pink lace trim
12. 3 medium shells for the front – preferred to be strung on a strand of smaller shells
13. Two strands of tiny shells on fishing wire for draping
14. Pen
15. med. paint brush
16. drop cloth
17. paper plates for paint.

How-to guide:

Phase 1 (pictures above)

1. Make a circle with your wire and wrap it around your head.  Make sure to leave a 1/4″ or so extra space for wrapping materials around it as it will grow a little.  Be sure to use the wire that is wrapped with the brown paper or whatever that is to add a little bit of cushion.  It is a floral wire from Michael’s.
2. Once you’ve established your head size and secured it by twisting it a few times and cutting off the excess, begin wrapping pipe-cleaner triangles.  Take one pipe cleaner (color doesn’t matter) bend it in half, make a triangle shape the width you want.  Once you determine this width, you need to stick to it for each triangle you attach or it will drastically alter the overall appearance.  Take your time.  Rushing only makes for mistakes that you might not be able to hide.
3. Secure the triangles by leaving a half inch at the bottom and twisting it onto the wire base.  Do that on each side and pull up to make it secure.  If you want this to be super duper strong.  I suggest doubling or tripling each triangle with pipe cleaners in a layered way.  I used one and it came out great.
4. Do this all the way around, keeping them evenly spaced.  You now have the foundation to build on and a cute crown shape.

Phase 2 (pictures above)

1. Make a pattern.  Lay the pipe cleaner triangle down on a lunch bag.  Cut the bottom where the crease is on the lunch bag so you have a nice flat and smooth piece of paper bag.  Draw a triangle leaving about a half inch to bend the edge over the pipe cleaner to tuck it away.
2. Cut it just right and then cut enough to finish the crown on the outside edge only.  Hot glue the paper triangles onto the pipe cleaner triangle.
3. Bend it over the pipe cleaner and glue inside, fold up bottom edge and glue inside.
4. go around with glue gun and make sure it is all secure and no pipe is showing.  It can be messy at this point because there will be lots covering this foundation.
5. Make another pattern for the inside which will be a smaller triangle shape.  Hold a triangle up to the inside and see if it covers the rough paper seam from the first pattern.  Glue it down to cover the seam and cover all of the pipe cleaners.  Glue thoroughly so there is not loose or rough paper inside.  Make a smooth interior wall.

Phase 3 (pictures above)

1. Paint the whole inside and outer side with golden paint.  Gives it a little lift in color and quality.
2. Then roughly paint with a big medium size paint brush a minty blue “Sea Breeze” from Michael’s craft acrylic paint.  I like the small bottles for projects so I don’t have a huge inventory of paints lying around.  This is more than enough for this project.
3. Let it dry.
4. Try on for size.  Making sure it’s not becoming unwearable.  Always do random fittings to make sure you’re on track.  Open it up where the wires are twisted and pull out a little slack if you are running into trouble.  Reattach.
5. You want to do all the details that will be covered up now.  We will glue on the shell drippy trims.  I chose to leave one triangle space in the middle of the forehead and to try to frame it with the shell strands.  They come on fishing wire from the Shell Shop in Morro Bay.  Remove some to leave an inch or a so of line.  I’m sure they sell these at Michael’s too.  I tied it around the wired circle and then pushed all the shells up tight against it so you can’t see any line.  I moved it back two triangles and tied off the end again.
6. Glue around the strands for extra support and drape it down a few inches.
7. Glue the flowers into of the triangle points.  I alternated between blue and pink colors and had gold on each one too.  Make sure flowers go all the way to the top.
8. Buy a trim that is 1/2″ – 3/4″ wide.  I’m pretty sure this was 3/4″ wide.  It was woven and thick from Michael’s.  They have great trim.  Glue it in the very back and wrap and glue all around, nice and tight.  Lots of glue.  Wipe any that shows.  Glue up the seam in the back and press it in a bit to secure it on there.  Cover this with a flower or two.

Phase 4 (pictures above)

1. Now you want to attach the three shells in front.  I used ones that were already strung as a necklace.  I glued them to the front triangles and hot glued the small shell strand to the side as far back as I could go, on top of the trim.
2. Glue clusters of flowers around the big shells and on top of the small shells to help hold it on and use a lot of glue under there to press in the shells but hide the glue.
3. Now cut a small piece of pink lace trim and drape it just above the shell draped strands around 5″ maybe 6″.  Glue near the front and back of the strands.  Make sure it falls right before the final glue is attached.

Congratulations!!!  You have now completed a pretty time consuming crown.  I think it took me longer because I was designing it at the time.  I’d say you will need 1-2 hours to be safe.  I like to take my time and enjoy the process of creating.  This one went off with a bang.  I’m telling you that it instantly sets a mood, creates a world of whimsy for everyone to partake in and feels soulful.  Wear it with love, you deserve it!!!