Every Princess Needs A Crown

This past Sunday was my last as Young Women's President here in Sioux Falls.  I have been trying to impress upon the girls this whole time just how much their Father in Heaven loves each and every one of them and just how important each one is to his plan here on Earth.  A few months ago I gave a lesson about just that and had searched all over for small crowns I could give the girls that were not a fortune to buy.    

After months of searching...I figured it was time to make them.

I went to a couple stores over the past three weeks searching for the right trims to make the crowns.  I  picked some up at Mill End Textiles, Joanns, and Hobby Lobby, but in the end, the four above all came from Hobby Lobby.  I don't recall the cost of each trim exactly, but if I were to guess: the rope on the left was $2 for 2 or 3 yds, the crocheted elastic band next to it was $4 for 2yds, the other two were purchased from the by-the-yard stuff @ $3 and $2 a yrd.  The first two trims mentioned were spools included in the 50% off ribbon sale.

I was able to get 20 crowns out of 4 yards of each.  With my sales and coupons, I figured the crowns costing around $1 each.

I sewed the rose trim to the elastic, then the bead trim to the other side of the rose trim.

The off white trim close to the bottom I added last minute and it was purchased at Mill End Textiles for $2.50 a yard.  I decided last minute to make the crowns taller and wanted to fill the space between the rope and the flowers.

I thought I would use empty water bottles as formers for the crowns, but then realized I would not get enough crowns out of the trim I purchased if I made them that wide.

There was a lot of mind changing in this project.

I finally decided on how wide to make the crowns, cut the trim to about 6" wide, then dipped each piece in a 50/50 mixture of Ellmer's Glue and water, one at a time.  I pressed the two ends of a single piece together in a crown-like shape, then stood the crown up on a plastic grocery bag to dry.  I ended up letting them dry in three locations due to glue puddles forming under each crown.  In other words, they were so saturated with glue that the first place I put them on a plastic bag ended up a puddle of glue after the crowns sat for a few minutes.  I was afraid there would be a huge glob of glue blob at the bottom of crowns if I left them there, so I moved them to another plastic bag and scraped the extra glue back into my bowl.  After another 5-10 minutes of the crowns resting, spot two resulted in a smaller puddle of glue, but still too much to have dry to the bottom of the crowns.  I finally reached a happy place at bag number three.  There was just a tiny puddle of glue there so I let the crowns stay there the rest of the night.

Now I was somewhat at odds over how exactly to stiffen the fabric.  I knew that the paper mache method mentioned above would work, but might take a really long time to dry.  After drying all night {actually only 6 hours since I finished the crowns at 2am and got up at 8am the next morning},they were still wet.  I decided to speed up the process by employing method number two in addition.

I sprayed the crowns with heavy starch {spray bottle bought at Walmart for $1 in laundry soap section} and placed them on an old cookie sheet.  Some of the crowns had popped open.  I just left them planning on hot gluing them shut later.

I placed them in a pre-heated oven heated to 230 degrees for 20 minutes.  They were still wet when I checked them, so I put them in again...and again...thought they were finally done, but put them back in for one more 20 minute session.  If you decide to make these, I would really make them the same way.  It made them stiff enough to paint.  How do you know when they are really ready to come out of the oven?  Just touch them where the fabric is the thickest.  If it feels damp at all, just throw them in one more time.  That last time, when I felt them right out of the oven they seemed dry, but once they cooled I could feel the dampness, fired up the oven again, and threw them back in.  You can also bump the oven up to 250 if you want to speed things along.  250 isn't hot enough to cause any problems.

Once the crowns were done cooking, I hot glued any open seams as mentioned before, then painted them, insides first, then outsides with Modern Masters Iron Paint.  Honestly, I don't think you need the expense of buying the expensive stuff.  Just use regular black paint.  Use a bristle brush with stiff bristles and jab at it.  

Did you notice that the crowns ended up way shorter!?!  I didn't like how long they were after all, so I cut off the bottom!  It was kind of neat, because the bottoms were just enough to be crowns too, and looked like King's crowns.  I didn't use them for this project, but totally will in the near future ;0)

Once it is completely covered in paint, let it air dry on the same cookie sheet you baked them on.  If you are in a hurry you can throw the crowns back in the oven at the lower temps used before and speed the process up a bit.

If you end up wiping the paint off the pearly thingys or other areas of the crowns, don't stress.  You are going to add another coat of paint later.  I like things like this to look a little messy anyway.  It adds to the vintagy aged look.

Ok, once the black paint was totally, completely, absolutely dry {no black streakies are welcome in the next step} paint a top coat, on the inside then the outside once again.  I used a golden tan color to look a little gold-ish, a light, light pink, and a sea green blue that was very light as well.  Sadly my pictures taken with my phone just before we handed these out do not show the colors very well.  Rather than wining and complaining more about not being at home with all my own lights and crap, I will just let you know what I learned about the top coat process.

I painted the tan and pink.  My sweet temporary landlord and best friend I have in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, painted the blue/green.  I LOVE Mary's!  I was trying to cover the crowns completely, with only a very little black showing through.  Mary very lightly, almost dry brushing, brushed the blue onto the crowns so that all the detail showed through, but didn't cover up the black.  Totally jealous. I started painting mine like hers.  So, don't blop the paint on!  Just brush it gently and let the black make them look aged.

I did a slight, light brushing of silver here and there on top, then let them dry the final time.

Had I been home with all my products, I probably would have put a light finishing spray or varnish on them to give them just a touch of shine.

There you have it!  Princess crowns for my sweet princesses in Young Womens.

Left to right, Blue, Pink, and Tan.

I hope you give these a try.  They were SO FUN TO MAKE!!!

They would be darling on a clip too.  I ran out of time, so didn't put them on a hair clip, but all the girls  put them on their heads and smiled from ear to ear :0)