Mermaid Crown Craft
By Gina Olkowski
Grab some seashells and craft supplies and circle March 29 on your calendar. It’s International Mermaid Day and you need to look the part.
Supplies
- Plastic headbands. I buy a multi-pack at my grocery store or pick up some at the dollar store. Fabric covered plastic ones work great.
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks, E6000 glue, or other other strong adhesive.
- Two to three pipe cleaners in the color of your choice
- Ribbon, beads, Mardi Gras beads
- Shells of various sizes. Scallop shells are my go-to shells, but I've used wampum, Venus shells, cockle shells, oysters, slipper shells, and others. Flatter shells are a bit easier to work with at first. Small spiral shells add interesting detail. Sturdier shells are better for younger mermaids’ daily wear.
- Optional materials:
- Small paint brush
- Mod Podge (matte or gloss)
- Clear acrylic sealer spray
- Glitter, rhinestones, gems, and jewels
Instructions
- Create a 5-hump pipe cleaner frame to attach your shells. Find the center top of the head band. About 3 finger-widths away from the center, wrap the end of the pipe cleaner around the headband and twist it to secure it. Bend the long tail of the pipe cleaner to form a small hump about 1.5 to 2 finger-widths high and 1 finger-width wide. With the long end, go in front of the headband, under it, and back up the back. Wrap that end around the leg of the hump tightly one or two times to secure your first hump.
- Make 4 more humps for a total of 5. You can make them get bigger to the center one and then smaller again, or make all 5 the same. If you run out of pipe cleaner length, twist a second one to the first, or start a fresh pipe cleaner on a new hump and trim off any extra length.
- Decorate the headband with ribbon. If you want to conceal the headband with ribbon, use the glue gun to attach it to the headband. If you are not using a glue gun, glue on the ribbon and then wait until the glue dries before proceeding to the next step.
- Design your crown. On a flat surface, lay out your shells and baubles in a arrangement to be attached to the pipe cleaner frame. Experiment with overlapping shells to get the best fit.
- Test to make sure the shells will fit on the frame before gluing anything. Decide which shells will be in front or behind the others. For example, in this design the outer shells are behind the center shell. When attaching them to the frame in the next step, you would attach the outer shells first.
- Glue the shells to the pipe cleaner frame. Start gluing the shells on in the order that you determined, using a glue gun or E6000 glue. A glue gun works best for attaching the shells to the pipe cleaners, as the glue hardens almost instantly. Attach the center shell last.
- Reinforce your crown. Bend the pipe cleaners to fit to your shell size. Put more glue between the pipe cleaners and the shells on the back side of the crown. For overlapping shells, add glue to the shells where they touch on the back.
- Embellish your crown. Once your base shells are attached, add smaller shells, beads, pearls, gems, seaweed, coral, and more to accent the basic design.
- Add ribbon straps. At the ear end of the headband, attach ribbon lengths for decoration or to use as ties to secure to little mermaid heads.
- Optional: Spray the crown with clear acrylic or brush Mod Podge on the shells to give the crown a shine.
Put on your crown and get ready to shell-ebrate International Mermaid Day!
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No live shelling: Be sure shells are empty and sand dollars, sea stars, and sea urchins are no longer alive before you bring them home.
