I'd like some tips on making some original pretty tiaras. Also I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for making really cool pretty glittery veils. Any other hair accessories and jewellry too!!!

one really easy way to make a tiara is with pipe cleaners! you can actually make some lovely ones if you can find sprakly ones.

what i just saw at our city's fair were little fairy tiaras. they consisted of three pieces of florists' wire (covered in various pastel coloured satin ribbons) braided and fastened into an O or a crown. there were satin rosettes glued onto the front (dark green leaves included) and trailing down the back were oodles and oodles of pieces of curling ribbon in different colours. the ends were curled, ever-so-slightly, but the effect were pure magic - even for a supposed adult like me. i wanted one, and i'm not into fairies at all!

SInce Im a faery every year for halloween, I need headgear every year. SO anyways, for my earthy plant faery year, I decided to make a vine crown, I made it with brownish-copperish wire twisted into the size of my head, several layers of it so It looks like a vine wreath, sortve, then I attached little curls/spirals of more wire, here and there, like the tendrils off a vine, the stick up or rest on my forehead, etc. Then, I attached some little orange and yellow berries that were on wire stems, and then finally, I twisted some paper ivy leaves I had made-they had wire inside them to give them stems and were kindve shellaced to make them sturdy. All in all, a really fun/pretty/useful little bit of headwear :)

*Beth*

Twenty years ago, I designed my wedding veil, a short one. A professional built it for me, but the concept was really easy.

A large curved hair comb with split teeth was wound with ivory satin ribbon. Two layers of tulle at different lengths were sewn on. On top of that ivory silk and velvet flowers with pearly sprays were fastened. So the comb was pushed in a few inches back from my hairline and the tulle poufed out behind.

A dramatic veil in other colors, goth even, could be the same idea, only with another layer or more of tulle, this time with one that goes in front of your face under the flowers. The veil can be flipped back over the flowers or jeweled comb.

BE careful with veils over your face, especially if you smoke. It will seem dreadfully oldfashioned to you, but there are laws on the books in most of the western world that limit veils to just covering the eyes. Too many women in the thirties set fire to their veils because after a while you don't really notice them anymore.

Crystal beads are widely available now in all price ranges. You could take a comb and some silver thread and just fasten a lot of them to the top of the comb. Maybe some little strings of them would look good dangling through your hair.

For a tiara that approximates the fancy diamond ones, look for metal or metallic look headbands that you can fix in your hair firmly where you would want the tiara to sit. Remember it will be lots heavier once you bejewel it.

Easiest approach i think would be sequin strings or crystal bead strings that you fasten to the head band. That's where a plastic one would be good, you can "drill" into it with a hot needle. The centerpiece could be a consignment shop rhinestone pin or a few of them wired together. The advantage to using something like that would be that you don't have to disguise the back so much, maybe just remove the clasps with tin snips or something.

Sounds like something fun to make. Hmmmm.

Beth

Hi, Missy Hole--

How about attaching the tiara to a snood for that medieval pre-Raphaelite look? They're real easy to make . . . knit, crochet, or edge a piece of fabric into a circle with a diameter of approximately 25 inches (maybe more, if you have very long hair). Take a piece of elastic about 22 inches long and sew the ends together to make a band. (You may want to cover the band if you're working with fabric). Then attach the big circle to the band evenly (crochet or knit, use single crochet; fabric, use a hem stitch).

I adapted this pattern from the "Perky Snood" pattern on the Crochet Partners server. This pattern creates an octagonal piece of mesh crochet (double-triple crochet) that's really nice if you omit the ridiculous grosgrain bow. What I did was gauge the dimensions of the finished product and applied it to different media. As always, possibilities are endless.

Here's the Perky Snood pattern (uses 100m of Takhi cotton):
>http://www.crochetpartners.org/Patterns/CPpat22.html

--lynda