Something New - Tiara

Hello........... Today's post is going to be full of sparkle, yes last month a friend and I decided we were going to attempt to make a tiara for our local craft club exhibition.  It seemed like a good idea at the time despite the fact neither of us knew the first thing about it, we were making the Tiara for one of the exhibitions themes, Han Christian Andersen.

Not just any tiara we were making a crown with the snow queen in mind !!

To make our Tiara we needed some Tiara bands and 4mm wire plus a selection of pretty icy toned beads. 

We picked a mixture of pearls and ice coloured beads and some pale blue swarovski crystals.  We had a tiara making book which to be honest just proved, to be very confusing so in the end we turned to you tube and watched a few beading tutorials to get the basics before deciding we were just going to wing it.

Cutting pieces of wire about 30 cm, we added one bead at a time then twisted the wire round and round on itself until we had made a enough for a little branch before adding in a another bead, twisting and adding beads until we had what looked like a little tree.

The tricky part came when I then had to make a second one to match the first.

We then made several sprigs with three beads

Two beads

and some with a single bead.

Assembling the tiara as we went by wrapping the remaining wire from each sprig around the tiara band to hold it in  place. As we were winging it the design evolved as we went.  Starting with three central trees at the front we then added to the design.

Once all the elements had been added to the tiara band and we were happy with the design, a long piece of wire was cut so we could add beads along the metal head band, wrapping the wire around the band then adding a bead, then wrapping the wire again before adding another bead until the band was covered with beads

and we had a Tiara that looked like this.  As new crafts go it proved much easier than both of us expected, far easier than the little bit of  jewellery I've made before.  It's definitely easier as a two person job, as someone can hold the tiara while the other person does the wiring.

As you can see we both had different wire wrapping techniques, the central tree (not made by me) is so much neater than my more organic approach to wire twisting. I made the two trees either side of the professional looking central tree.

Of course I couldn't resist trying it on.

and taking  a couple of selfies

Ta-Dah

So as new crafts go, this was a good one, the tiara came together much more quickly than expected and was also much easier to make then anticipated, so I'm for sure going to have another go, next up I'm planning on making some smaller hair pins, that will be much more wearable as I'm not sure I can pull off the tiara look, in every day life 

Happy Crafting.

Clare xx