Lace Crown Tutorial

Anyone else’s doll celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee? Lace crowns are an easy and inexpensive craft to make for your dolls, or make them larger for a children’s party or costume.

What you’ll need:

1. White school glue
2. Lace (I used 7 1/4″ for magenta crown, and 10 1/4″ for the white crowns)
3. Scissors
4. Craft paint brush
5. Container in which to mix the glue/water together
6. Stir stick, craft stick, or plastic utensil (something to stir with)
7. Wax paper or parchment paper
8. Water
9. Choice of closure: sewing needle/thread, hot glue gun, etc.
10. Optional: jars the desired circumference for the crown
11. Optional: Paint, glitter, or embellishments.

Instructions

If using a jar, cover the jars with wax paper or parchment. I made one without a jar as a mold and it worked fine.

Mix white glue with water, equal parts. I chose a small jar as my measuring cup. Stir until completely mixed.

Cut the lace to the length you want. I chose jars that measured my desired crown circumference and cut my lace 1″ longer.

Place the lace onto the parchment paper and use a paint brush to dab the glue mixture on the lace, soaking it thoroughly.

Alternatively, you can just dip and submerge the lace in the glue mixture. This method worked well.

After soaking it in the glue mixture, I squeezed out some of the glue before continuing.

Place the lace onto the parchment paper, and continue to remove excess glue, no matter which method you used to soak the lace.

Lift and flip it over, removing any extra glue that puddles in the “windows” or holes of the lace design. You won’t want dried glue mixture in the holes of the lace when dried. I had to work harder on the lace shown below. I had to shake it a bit to clear the little holes of glue mixture.

Once you are satisfied that the lace holes or “windows” don’t have excess glue mixture, set it on the parchment to dry completely, flipping it over once or twice while drying, waiting an hour or so between flips. I flipped twice before leaving them overnight.

Note about different laces:

The more heavily embroidered lace was not stiffening as much as the less dense lace (magenta). After an hour of drying, I soaked it again and made sure the holes were free of glue build up again.

Jar Method:

Instead of leaving them to dry flat, wrap the lace around the jar, overlapping the ends. Some stayed on the jar fine on their own. Others needed to be propped up where it overlapped. I just used the little jar and that worked fine. Try to keep the ends flat against the jar. You may want to peek in on them as the end may have bent away from the jar. One of mine did that. The end didn’t dry straight, so I cut the bent part off.

I cut the magenta lace too short and it didn’t overlap as I planned, but still worked fine.

Once dry, remove from the jar. You can see they stand on their own, and the ends really didn’t need to be sewn or glued together, especially if the lace ends dried flat.

Cut neatly the ends if the lace has raggedy edges.

Note: If you want to paint or add glitter, do this before finishing the ends. I think I may hand embroider some details on the little white crown, maybe just little “x’s” in between the flowers.

To finish the lace that was dried flat, I hand sewed the ends together. This can also be done with those that dried on the jar. You could hot glue the ends together as well. If you are concerned with your doll’s hair, you could add a small piece of felt to the inside as you hand sew or glue the ends together.

Hope you give the crown tutorial a try! I think little girls would love playing with this pretty accessory 🙂

~Erin