simple felt crowns

 

We've been playing dolls quite a bit lately and Naiya's stories keep leading us down the princess path.  After many a tiara twisted from play silks or cut from paper and temporarily held in place with a bit of scotch tape, we finally devoted a crafting afternoon to making several sizes of crowns for all the royalty who constantly show up in our games and play.  These aren't the most elegant diadems we've ever concocted but they were simple and Naiya was able to help make them and did the decorating entirely on her own.

We began by measuring a length of elastic around her head and hand-sewing the ends together.

We then folded a piece of paper in half and cut a crown pattern.  (When the paper was unfolded, the finished pattern was perfectly symmetrical.)

We placed this pattern on a piece of craft felt that was folded in half at the bottom edge.  We traced it with a pencil (one could also use fabric chalk) and cut out the crown shape.

After unfolding the fabric, we slathered on some Tacky Glue.  (Tacky Glue works well on fabric and holds pretty firmly over time.)

Finally, we laid the elastic band on the felt (with the stitched seam inside) and re-folded the bottom edge.  We carefully lined up the points and sealed the band inside.

While Naiya's masterpiece was drying in the sun (which took a couple of hours), we measured a few dolls heads and prepared for ranks of royalty to arrive.

For decorating, I set out little bowls full of buttons, beads and costume jewels and handed Naiya another paintbrush along with a pot of glue.  She decorated all the crowns in similar fashion with bling at each pointy tip.  All the ladies are ever so pleased with their new regal head-wear.