King Me!
Written By Courtney Russell
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These crowns work for dress-up — a daily activity at our house — or as key costume components for Three Kings Day majesties, who reportedly leave gifts for good kids on January 6. (If you're out of frankincense and myrrh, restock at scents-of-earth.com.)
Materials
- 8 1/2-by-11-inch piece of plain paper
- Pencil, ruler, scissors
- 2 (9-by-12-inch) sheets of craft foam ($5 for 10 Wonderfoam sheets, dickblick.com)
- 5 or more decorative brads ($4 to $6 for 16 K-ology brads, joann.com)
- Tacky glue (we used Aleene's, $2, joann.com)
- Ribbon, plastic gems, paint — any decorations your child likes
- 2 medium binder clips (available at office supply stores)
Instructions
Make a template of half the crown: Put the paper on a work surface with a long side facing you. Use the pencil to make a dot about halfway up the left edge of the paper, and another dot in the top right corner. Starting at the upper dot and ending at the lower dot, roughly duplicate the shape at left.
Have your child cut out the template, then trace it onto each of the 2 pieces of foam, and cut those shapes out.
Lay the 2 foam pieces flat with the 2 high (front) points overlapping by about 1/2 inch. Help your child poke 3 brads through both layers of foam where they overlap, spacing them evenly (as shown in crowns below) and open the prongs so they lie flat. (Or, if you like, use glue to hold the pieces in place. Allow the glue to dry thoroughly, about 2 hours.) Trim the overlapping center points with scissors to form a single point.
Lay the crown flat and let kids have their way with the glue and embellishments (no gems or other choking hazards for those under 3, of course). Allow the glue to dry completely, about 2 hours.
Wrap the crown around your child's head so the ends overlap in the back. Remove the crown, holding the ends together. Push 2 brads through the overlapping ends, about 1 inch from the top and bottom edges. (If you'd rather not use brads, glue the ends together, use binder clips to hold in place, and let dry, again, about 2 hours.)
