Hello everyone!! I cannot believe that we are already in August!! This summer has flown by, and we are set to return to Marywood in less than a month now!!
As the summer has gone by, I have found myself missing my friends from college more and more. What am I to do with myself without my friends? Life is much more dull when you are hundreds of miles from your besties.
Luckily for me, my friends and I had planned a super fun get together in my home state of New Jersey. What did we do?
We went to only the coolest, most fantastical, most majestic kingdom of allllllllll New Jersey: Medieval Times!!
Medieval Times is a dinner-and-show. Attendees (the nobles of the realm) are seated in stadium seating, and given one of six knights to cheer for. As we cheer for our knight, the warriors battle it out before us, champions of the King and Queen. The show is full of theatrics, ponies, and even a falcon. Everything about the night is themed to the fantasy and Medieval vibe, and even the quietest attendees will find them cheering for their knight’s victory.
Because I wanted to make this night even more special for my friends, I decided to make flower crowns for my group. It was a super fun process, an easy craft, and super comfortable to wear.
I followed a tutorial from Pinterest, which I would recommend reading if you are interested in making your own floral crown, or are interested in seeing the steps I am talking about here on the blog. I myself am not much of a crafter, but this was super easy to follow and modify.
The first step was getting supplies. I went to Michael’s and spent close to $45, so if you want to try this craft yourself, it can get a little pricey, especially if you buy multiple types of flowers. I bought the same materials found in the tutorial, but I skipped the floral tape and did just fine. The floral wire, vine ribbon, hot glue, and artifical flowers made up the bulk of this project. I bought a lot of flowers admittedly; I bought purple flowers for my one friend, and pink for my other. I also bought these small white daisy-like flowers as a smaller accent, but did not end up using these for my friends’ crowns. I really wanted these crowns to reflect my friends’ personalities. For my own crown, I used the leftover flowers.
Then, I cut all the artificial flowers from their stems, which was honestly really relaxing. The hardest step was to make the crown base out of the wire. Turns out, its is very hard to judge the size of your friend’s head when they are not with you in person. I had multiple different bases before I chose the ones I thought might fit my friends. Even more difficult was that the floral wire refused to bunch together. Eventually, I found that if I basically pressed these wires together as I circled the base, the different rings of vine wire (5 or 6 total) they would stick together better when I eventually had to wrap the extra wire around all of the rings.
After that, it was smooth sailing. I wrapped the vine ribbon around the wire base. For my friends’ crowns, I also added ribbons on the back of the crown. This is not actually in the tutorial, but I thought it would elevate the princess vibe. I also thought the ribbons were more my friends’ vibes. For my own crown, I omitted the ribbons because I ran out of time, but also that I wanted a more naturey-natural look for my own. I also ran out of ribbon….The easiest, most fun part, was hot glueing the flowers around the wire.
To be completely honest… I think I went overboard with the flowers. But is there really such a thing as too many flowers??
In the end, I am very happy with how these crowns turned out and totally recommend the tutorial linked above. Below, are some images of the crowns in action!! I unfortunately could not get pictures of my friends’ crowns on their own, so these images from the show are the best I can do. I really like the variety I could get with just two flowers. My friend, Liz, got the pink crown and I made her crown very full with flowers because that felt more her vibe. For my friend Brenna, I chose to make her crown a little less full, but multiple types of the purple flowers. Her crown has the regular purple flowers, but also the small purple buds found on the artificial plant. My own crown, I wanted to be more viney and has the least flowers on it. I think putting the crowns together with our outfits also gives a good idea of the fantasy-inspired attire we were going for and honestly the outfits and crowns elevated each other together.
At the end of the day, I am just happy these crowns turned out the way they did. I care less about the costumes or the fantasy vibe — I am really in it for the use of art as a gift. I have always felt that art is something to be shared, and that part if my role as an artist is to brighten people’s lives with my talents. I am not usually a crafter, but it overjoys me that I got to create something for some of the most important people in my life, and to make their night even more special.
I hope that you all enjoyed this latest update! I bid thee farewell!!
Glory to all of you knights, nobles, ladies, royals, and jesters of the realm!
-Rebecca Prowse