How to Make a Coronation Crown

Make your own crown for the coronation celebrations, or for your own royal event! This beautiful medieval crown will knock the socks of the competition, but it is surprisingly quick and easy to make.

A paper crown fit to be crowned in…

Modelled on the British monarchy’s solid gold St Edward’s Crown, this version is a tad less pricey, and a lot less heavy on the head. The St Edward’s crown is considered the official coronation crown, and is the one Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in; which makes it the perfect model for our jubilee and coronation crown craft.

Make your own coronation crown

What with street parties for royal weddings and jubilees, I’ve made quite a few of these coronation crowns now, and can knock one out in about ten minutes. So with a bit of practice, you can make enough for a whole neighbourhood in no time. A word of warning though. While these aren’t difficult to make, there are a few parts which are a bit fiddly. My eight year old could manage them, but I think they would be tricky for younger children.

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Materials needed:

• Gold card (this link is to the shiny gold card used on my purple crown) or sugar/construction paper
• Thin card/strong paper (any colour)
• Tissue or crepe paper
• A split pin / brad fastener
• Double-sided sticky tape, sticky tape, or glue
• (optional) stick-on gems to decorate

Instructions:

Cut your materials to size

1. Prepare your materials.

From the gold/main crown card or paper cut:

• One long piece for the head band. Approximately 5cm x 60cm (measure around your head to be sure the crown will fit!)
• Four or six (whichever you prefer) short pieces for the curved arches of the crown. Each strip should be approximately 4cm x 22cm.
• A small piece of card, big enough to cut out two identical crown toppers or ornaments. My ornament is roughly 8cm x 12cm in size.
• If you want to make the purple coronation crown (with four arches), cut out four more ornaments to stick on the ends around the crown. These can be single sided.

Then from the thin card or paper (mine was black), cut:

• Two short pieces of card. Approximately 4cm x 30cm. These will not be visible when the crown is finished, so you can use any colour (as long as it doesn’t show through your tissue/crepe paper!)

Finally, from your tissue or crepe paper, cut:

• Four ‘petals’ that will form the lining of the crown and hide the inner support pieces. Download the template for this (and the ornament) from my printables page, or use a rough approximation.

Make a basic crown ‘circlet’

2. Attach the two ends of the longest gold card strip together, to form a head band or circlet. This is the basis of your crown, so make sure it fits you before you stick it together!

I have found that around 60cm is a good basic size to fit most people, but do check to see if that works for you – this might be too big for small children, but too small for some adults…

If your card isn’t long enough, just attach two strips together to make a longer one.

I used double-sided sticky tape to make these coronation crowns, but you can use ordinary sticky tape or glue.

Create the inner support

3. Take one of your support piece strips (the black/basic card), and attach one end to the inside of the circlet.

Make sure to attach this at the BOTTOM of the circlet (but with the support strip pointing up), as shown in the picture. You don’t want it stuck down to the entire width of the circlet because you’ll be sticking the lining and the arch strips above this.

Fasten the other end of the support strip to the opposite side of the circlet. Then do the same with the remaining support strip but at a right angle to the first one, so that the two strips cross over in the middle.

This is the inner support. Later on, you will cover this with tissue paper, and anchor the arches to it at the centre.

Try your crown on again at this point, to make sure it still fits nicely. The inner support should sit on or just above your head, like a cap.

Before you move on, punch a hole through the middle of these support strips, at the centre point where the two strips cross over each other.

Attach the arch strips to your coronation crown

4. Cut one end of each of your arch strips into a rounded point. Leave the other end flat.

Position one of your arch strips at the front of your crown, and one at the back. To fix them in place, attach the flat end of these strips to the inside of the circlet, about halfway up. Make sure they are fixed at the same height, because you want them all to be even.

Repeat with the remaining arch strips, spacing them equally around the circlet. Anywhere between four (like the original St Edward’s Crown) and six strips looks best.

Punch a hole at the top of each strip. Try to put these at the same height and position on each strip, again, so that they are all even.

Attach the lining

5. Now it is time to cover the inner support strips by attaching the petals of tissue or crepe paper to the inside of the circlet. Do this by sticking down the long, flat edge around the circlet, between the support cap and where you have attached the arch strips so that it covers the supports but doesn’t get in the way of the arches.

You should find each petal covers a little over a quarter of the crown’s circumference, and that they overlap neatly. It therefore works best if you attach the side petals first, and do the front and back ones last, so they are on top.

Next, stick the points of the petal down at the top of the inner support cap.

And then finally, poke a sharp pencil through the tissue paper, through the centre hole you made earlier where the support strips cross over each other.

Make your crown ‘topper’

6. Cut out a shape to use as the ornament for the centre of your crown, where the arches meet. I’ve used a cross shape, similar to the one on the real St Edward’s crown (a crosses-pattée, if you want to get all technical about it).

You can download or copy a template for my cross (along with the lining petals) from my printables page, although you don’t need to be too exact about it.

Cut two of these shapes, and make sure to include a tab at the bottom (as per my template).

Stick the two shapes together (not the tabs!). Then fold the tabs out so that the the combined shape can stand upright.

Punch a hole through ONE of the tabs, as close to the fold as possible.

Put together your coronation crown

7. To finish off the structure of your crown, poke the split pin (or brad) through the top of the hole you’ve just made in the tab of your topper ornament, so that the split pin is hanging down.

Then, with the pin attached to your topper, thread the it through the holes at the end of each of your arch strips, joining them all together at the tip.

Now, gently pulling the arch strips down so that they curve towards the centre, poke the split pin through the hole in the tissue/crepe paper and support strips in the middle of the crown.

Finally, fasten the split pin underneath (on the inside of your crown).

Add extra crosses to the circlet

8. If you want to make the purple crown, then attach the remaining four ornaments to the base of each arch. The real St Edward’s crown also has fleur de lis in between the crosses around the circlet, but we did not have room on our crown.

You can, of course, stick ornaments on the ends of the arches if you have made six, rather than four, but we thought it looked a little too busy. You can also use different shapes, such as fleur de lis, instead of crosses.

Bejewel it!

9. Your coronation crown is good to wear as it is, but as the real St Edward’s Crown is decorated with 444 different gems, you might want to add a few to your crown too!

We used (a lot of) stick on gems, which added just the right amount of glam!

Alternative materials

I made our coronation crown out of thin gold card and tissue paper, but you could also use sugar paper just as easily. I actually made a test version out of ordinary printer / copier paper, which also worked fine, though it’s obviously a little less robust than the card versions.

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