Entry #22 from our Calling All Bloggers Challenge was sent to us by Jessica Sterling of Jessie Beans:

Find Your Inner Fairy

One of my favorite things about summer is all of the street fairs and art festivals that happen. When I was a little girl it seemed there was always a vendor selling fairy crowns that had long streaming tails of curling ribbon behind them. I’d buy a new crown at every festival and run around feeling like a fairy princess for the day.

 May Arts has a wonderful selection of wired ribbon that can be used to make these crowns! They are also an affordable upgrade from the curling ribbon commonly used and much prettier. Using multiple wired ribbons will help your crown maintain its shape – and the color possibilities are endless! The hardest part for me was picking out which color combination to use! Here is what I chose and how I made my whimsical crown:

Step 1: I started with a combination of pink and green shimmery wired ribbons, some burgundy and brown leaf trim, my scissors and a ribbon storage kit which I use to help grab the ribbon.

Step 2: Next, I lined up the ends of the ribbon and cut about a 2.5 yard length  (I like long streamers on the crowns!).

Step 3: Then I grabbed the ribbon with about 1 yard dangling on one end, and took one of the ribbons and tied a knot around the entire bunch of ribbons to anchor them.

Step 4: Once I tie my knot, I insert it into my storage container to anchor it. I leave the long end of the ribbons facing me since that is the portion we want to braid.

Step 5: Next, I separated my ribbon into 3 sections in preparation to braid it (Be sure it is not tangled up at the ends!).

Step 6: Then I braided my ribbon until my braid was about 15” (the amount needed to go around me head), making sure I pulled the sections straight all the way to the ends with each weave to prevent the ribbon from knotting on the bottom end.

Step 7: Once I have my desired braid length, I tie a ribbon around the end to secure it.

Step 8: Now that I have the base for my crown, I need to make the ribbon tails pretty! So I grabbed a bottle of glue (Anything small and round will work) to wrap the wired ribbon around and create curls.

Step 9: At this point the crown is mostly finished, and should look something like this:

Step 10: You can either tie the ends together with more ribbon and leave it plain, or embellish it more to make it extra special! I love the May Arts BY series of ribbon leaves, they make for the perfect forest fairy touch! However, I have found that braiding this ribbon in causes the leaves to become squished & hidden in the braid. The best way to add the leaves into your crown is by pulling apart sections of the braid and weaving it through like so:

Step 11: Once the leaves were woven through, I tied them in with the rest of the ribbon so my crown looked like this:

Step 12: You can either stop here, or make a ribbon flower to tie the ends together! Wired ribbon makes it super quick & easy to make ribbon roses!  All you need to do is pull a little bit of wire out of the ribbon on one end and fold it over a few times to keep it from pulling out. Then pull the wire out on the end of the ribbon and scrunch it up to make gathers for your rose like so:

Step 13: Once your ribbon is all gathered, you just roll it up into a rose shape while you pinch the bottom. You can sew it with a needle & thread for extra security, but I just used the excess wire to wrap around the bottom of the rose and secure the shape:

Step 14: I also still had some wire hanging off of the rose after wrapping it, so I used this to secure the crown by wrapping the wire around the ends of the braided section, right above the curls. By doing this you tie off the crown and attach the ribbon rose all in one step! And voila! Your crown is complete!

Now you can frolic in the woods like a fairy, wear it to a street fair or art walk, or even host your own fairy tea party this summer and make crowns for you and all your friends  (TIP: You can decorate your tree’s with left over ribbon scraps for an extra special afternoon in the yard!).