Tutorial Tuesday: Gilded Lace Crowns

These pretty crowns are great for costumes (Halloween princess, anyone?), fairy house decorations, and the tiny ones could be cute tree ornaments. They are deceptively easy to make, and could be a fun project to do with little ones.

Materials:
Lace, modpodge, gold acrylic paint, gold leafing powder.
Tools:
scissors, paintbrushes, wax paper, optional hair dryer

1) Take your lace and make a crown shape.

The laces I used have one flat side. That really helps the structure.
The width of the lace and the pattern will help you determine the size of your crown.

2) Trim lace to size with a 1/2 inch or more overlap, matching pattern.

3) Paint with gold acrylic paint. Be sure to cover all surfaces.
Paint both sides of the lace.Let dry.
You may want to do more coats of gold paint.
I mixed an iridescent gold and a flakier gold for a
deeper look.

4) Place on wax paper.

5) Coat with ModPodge until well saturated.
I recommend you seal with, at least, 3 more coats of Modpodge.
Move it around while its really wet,
to keep the holes in the lace from becoming windows

6) Enhance the color with gold leafing powder
dabbed onto wet Modpodge with dry brush.
You can skip this step, but I really think it makes all the difference.

7) Dry completely flat. A hair dryer can speed the process.
Brush dry crown with a dry brush to remove excess leafing powder.
Peel off of the wax paper.

8) After all of ModPodge dries,
use craft glue to attach the ends of the lace together
to form the crown.

8.5)Pinch ends with fingers until set, wait overnight, until dry.

If this crown will see heavy use,
some stitches on a sewing machine might also be a good idea.

9) Place crown on head and have fun storming the castle.