Style Generis: DIY: Gold Flower Crown with Delicate Chain

Hi there! Today, I have for you another DIY and I'm really, really excited about this one. When two of my readers requested this certain DIY, I was a bit, okay very nervous at first because there are already so many of these DIYs out there and I wanted to make mine different because what's the point in showing you how to make something that twenty million other people have already? I also only had a very rough idea in my mind of what I wanted it to look like, something along the lines of a delicate crown with chains. I didn't really know what I'd use as the base of the crown, but I'm really, really glad this ended up working.

Hopefully, the two readers who requested this are still around, but thank you so much to Alice Grace and Allison for requesting this. It's definitely up there with the Hailee Steinfeld safety pin shirt, the Taylor Swift "22" shirt, and the wire infinity ring as one of my favourite DIYs I've ever done.

So thank you, thank you, thank you!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

glue gun
jewellery chain (Bead Landing Chain)
twine (Bead Landing Cording 20 lb Hemp Cord)
16 gauge aluminium wire (Bead Landing 16 Gauge Aluminum Wire)
variety of flowers (I got four different bunches from the dollar store)
heavy-duty scissors and/or wire cutters
regular pliers
gold spray paint (not pictured, Krylon Premium 18 kt. Gold Plate)
newspaper (not pictured)

Start off by taking your wire and shaping it into a circle that fits around your head. The diameter should be around 20 cm/8 inches give or take depending on the size of your head and where you want it to sit. You should definitely try it on to make sure it's the right size.

Then, using either your scissors or wire cutters, cut the wire accordingly and wrap one end of the wire around the other to secure it. If for some reason it doesn't sit properly on your head, cut the circle somewhere, cut some more wire, and wrap the ends around the two ends of the original circle to extend the size.

Then, cutting more pieces of wire, wrap those around the original circle to strength then wire. I suggest cutting shorter sections of about six inches because longer pieces will get really annoying to wrap around.

Repeat that step again so now you'll have two wires wrapped around the original circle. Try to wrap the wire around in the same direction to make it easier for yourself later on.

You should be left with something like this.

Take a piece of twine and double-knot it around one part of the circle. Then, wrap the twine around the circle again and try to wrap it where there isn't already wire. You could also repeat this step with wire if you want, but I just wanted to limit the amount of silver showing through in my crown.

You will probably have to cut off several sections of twine to work with at a time.

To secure the end, tie it loosely and hot glue it on. Then, once you're done with that cut another piece of twine, double-knot it, and wrap it tightly around the wire to form the base of your crown.

It definitely takes some time and lots of patience, but it's surely worth it. Again, you'll probably have to cut off smaller sections to work with, so again, to seal off the ends, tie them off and put hot glue on it. Depending on how quickly you work, you could also just slather on a bit of hot glue and then continue wrapping without having to knot anything (which is really, really nice).

Now, it`s time to work with the flowers. Take the smallest bunch of flowers and cut off a "stem." Try doing so on a diagonally so when you hot glue it to the twine base, it's not bulky-looking and blends in seamlessly with the twine.

Wrap the flowers around them twine and try your best to make it look natural. The trick is not to glue the flowers down too much, only twice: once at the very end of the stem and once where you want the flower to sit as shown above.

After finishing with the smallest flowers white flowers, I added the pink ones, then the yellow daisies, then three of the big white daisies. Try to slowly build up the layers to achieve the most natural-looking flower crown.

For the first layer of small white flowers, I kept most of the green leaves and glued them down, but as I added layers, I mostly just cut off the flower and glued it on. Depending on the flowers you get, you might find yourself having to trim the leaves off to make the crown a bit less green.

When you're layering up the flowers, try to be as spontaneous as possible because you want it to seem as if you just picked up the crown of the forest floor and not have every flower an exact distance from one another or anything like that. Of course, if you want to go for that look, go ahead, but for this tutorial, that's not what I was going for.

Also, don't forget to stick the crown on your head every once in a while and take a step back to see what places are missing flowers and where you could improve your flower arrangement. Don't forget to stick the flower on first before gluing it down. Of course, it's not that big of a deal if you have to rip the flower off after hot gluing it, but it makes the crown look a tad bit messier.

After you're done gluing all your flowers, put it on your head to find the best angle. Then, start draping your chain along the crown. Honestly, for this step, it's best to just look at the photos and use your own judgement to find the best way to drape it, but what I did was find that best angle, make note of it, and start draping the chain from there. My "loops" drop down about 5 cm/2 inches and span about 10 cm/4 inches.

Lay it out first to see how it looks and then hot glue the chain to the twine.

Don't forget to leave a bit of space at the front where your forehead is because you probably don't want some chain swinging in the middle of your face. I can only assume that that'd be a bit annoying. I still had a bit of leftover chain, so I simply wrapped it around the twine and hot glued it down.

Once you're happy with that, it's time to add that golden touch! Either go outside or to a well-ventilated room and lay out some newspaper. Then, put your crown down and with your gold spray paint, hold it about 30 cm/12 inches away from the crown and spray a very light layer of gold spray paint all over the crown. If you want to go for the whole solid gold flower crown thing, go ahead, but for this tutorial, it was just a light dusting.