Light Up Festival Fancy Dress Crown DIY

First things first, Hogsozzle was a blast. You'll be sick of me going on about it if you follow me on any other social media but I just want to take a minute to say I have the serious post-festival blues this week - I'll be doing a full post with loads of photos and thank yous to the incredible crew and stalls early next week.

Right now I'm here to share a DIY for the crown that I made to pull together my Snow Queen costume. I didn't get a decent picture of the whole outfit, it was pretty much just a white top and a big fluffy waistcoat other than the crown anyway, but I do have a lot of pics of me loving life in my light-up headpiece!

I have to say that my usual attempts to create festival fancy dress don't tend to go this well. Right now, my crown is sitting next to me in almost perfect condition, still lighting up, ready to rock another event. This never happens to me. Usually anything I made falls apart instantly, gets lost or broken or simply begins to degrade without explanation. Not this baby. The materials are relatively easy to source with the exception of the plastic base which I was lucky enough to find behind my boyfriends sofa. The actual plastic I used is something to do with digital printing, it's about 3mm thick and matte white. I've found something similiar on Amazon as an alternative and linked in the materials list below.

The instructions below are for creating a Snow Queen crown similar to the one I've made, but you could easily change up the colours and additions to create something that suits your own costume needs!

You will need:

Heavy duty plastic sheet (try this one in 3mm or 2mm if you don't have a craft knife)
Sharp scissors or craft knife
Gluegun
Sellotape
Metal ruler
String of battery operated lights
3 meters of 1cm wide velvet ribbon
2 meters of thin silver cord
1 meter of 3cm wide binding tape
5 medium pompoms
1 large pompom

First, measure your head circumference and add two inches. Use the measurement to draw a strip on the plastic (obviously using one of the straight edges as a guide and to reduce wastage!)

Mark an inch off each end, this will be where you join the crown together.

Mark the centre point.

My centre spike was 4 inches and the spikes on either side were 3 inches. I marked them off with a metal ruler and then drew another line 3 inches higher to use as a guide for the top of the spikes.

Once everything is pencilled in, start cutting. The plastic I used was just about thin enough to cut with normal scissors but next time I'll use a craft knife for a cleaner finish.

Now it's time to decorate! Use the binding tape for the headband. I measured the width of my band so that the binding tape would fold very slightly over and conceal the white edge.

Next it's time to add the lights. I started at one end and worked out there was enough for three lights per spike. Move slowly, securing the wires away from the base of the bulb with a bit of glue. Use your metal ruler to press hard onto each glue spot, this will harden it quicker and leave a flat finish.  Leave the battery pack loose with some spare wire for now.

To wrap the spikes I secured the velvet ribbon on the bottom and slightly to the side with a blob of glue and wrapped it all the way around, covering as much white plastic as possible and making sure to wrap the wire of the lights tightly to the spike. The ribbon is secured with a tiny bit of glue at the top - use the ruler to harden and flatten as before.

Do the same with the silver ribbon, wrapping it round the spike to fill in any gaps. You could add another ribbon or thread here if you wanted but as my spikes where meant to represent icicles I didn't mind the flash of white showing through. You could also paint the plastic with acrylic paint before you start wrapping it.

Use a small pompom to conceal the joins of the ribbons, thread and binding tape.

Finally, I cut a hole in the big pompom and squirted some hot glue into the hole, wedging it hard onto my centre spike. I was most worried that this would come off but it held fast and I don't think I could get it off if I tried!!

I joined the two ends together with sellotape which I also wrapped round the battery pack. This means I could lay the crown flat if I didn't want it to get damaged on a long car journey and also makes it easier to change the batteries.

Done! I would LOVE to know if you try this method to make your own light-up festival crown and see pics of your finished piece! I'm so proud of this that I'm tempted to make some custom ones so if you don't have the time or materials get in touch on twitter or email me.