A Glorious Crown
If you have been a casual observer of the Australian Makers scene anytime in, perhaps, the last two years you may be familiar with the crafting and design queen that is Rachel Burke. If you don’t know her name you will surely have seen one of her sparkly, dreams-come-true, tinsel jackets. Swoon.
The other day I was taking a lazy ole cruise around the ‘gram when I commenced an intense session of stalking Burke’s account imakestagram and generally got to feeling like my life was not nearly glittery enough. That was, until I happened upon a post that pointed me to her You Tube channel Tinsel Town. This immortal creature has blessed us human folk with - so far - four very exciting You Tube tutorials. I was INSTANTLY drawn to the pipe cleaner crown. There are actually a number of pipe cleaner crowns across You Tube but this one is EXTRA. This is the one you want to make.
The video, at 17 minutes long, features a welcome from Burke and a bit of background about her practice, an inside look at one of her pop up shops, and an encouraging and detailed lesson in making your very own crown. It appears that Burke practices crafting positivity - a ‘do what takes you - you cannot be wrong’ kind of vibe or what I call #liveyourbestcraftlife
Leap forward a few days and a dear friend, Emily, tells me at short notice that she is flying to Melbourne and am I free to catch up with her and our wonderful friend Hailey? I respond enthusiastically and three of us had scheduled a date at my house for that Sunday afternoon. At the end of last year Emily got married - and made her own damn wedding dress - and celebrated a significant birthday. The two events were so close to each other that she opted to forego a hens party and a birthday party - figuring that the wedding was enough. WRONG.
With the two delightful creatures coming to my house I schemed a scheme with Hailey to make this Summer afternoon event a glorious birthday/hens party. I know the trend for the last few years has been for brides and their bridal parties to make and wear floral crowns but here was my chance to bring a pipe cleaner crown from You Tube and into reality. Crafternoon was FUCKING ON!!
For this activity you need a few supplies - as Burke says ‘more is more’ and I had diddly. I first checked out some $2 shops and The Reject Shop before going on a last minute mother/daughter trip to our local Spotlight. I love Spotlight but damn if it ain’t expensive sometimes. I was grabbing handfuls of assorted crafty items when I thought a price check was in order…. gulp… $140. I proceeded to undertake some economic rationalisation and got it down to around $110. Still too much. Enter Mum. Mother dearest proceeded to tell me that she had a whole bunch of stuff, gems, sequins, hot glue guns, that I was welcome to use for my party the next day and she would drop them off. The next day I set up three crafting stations with boards, guns and patty pans, got the bubbly ready and awaited my guests.
Needless to say Emily was over-joyed with her surprise birthday/hens. Weep. Emily and I got to watching the tutorial video (with Hailey running a smidge late.)
The tough choices came straight away - what colour scheme to use for the crown. I opted for a tinsel pink, blue and silver palette; Emily chose pastel purple, blue and silver; and, Hailey called to her sister to find out what her nieces favourite colour was (it was pink).
It has to be said Burke’s tutoring was so simple and clear that not once did we forget or question how we were to do something. The deception however is that if you showed me a picture of one of her crown and asked me to make it without the tutorial I would have no-f*$king clue.
The best and funnest (go with it) part is of course sticking on all the gems and poms and sequins and googly eyes and whatever else you can find. There was a number of burn injuries from the hot glue - I won’t lie. For the smaller gems I would recommend putting the glue directly on the pipe cleaner and dropping them on. Burke is clearly very adept with the glue gun - but unless you are well practised the burn risk is real.
In between the chats, bubbly, snacks and hot glue injuries I would say it took us around one and a half hours to make our crowns. It is very tempting to put the crown on as you are going but please make sure the glue has set first, lest you be wearing the crown permanently (Viserys style).
The Finished Product(s)
My Final Word
This was a top activity to do with good friends. If you don’t have the materials already - and depending on how many options you want at your fingertips - this can actually be quite an expensive project. What I like about Burke’s methodology is that she crafts with zero waste. Every bit of pipe cleaner and crafty material is used or saved for another project.
Will you have that many opportunities to wearing a crown? Well, that depends on what you think is a crown worthy event. I’m wearing mine to write this blog and I am contemplating wearing it to work on my birthday. I am even tempted to make a Gryffindor themed crown to wear to Cursed Child… or a three eyed-crow raven to wear to the Game of Thrones season launch party.
Burke has published a DIY book Be Dazzling and I am so very tempted to get it. If only to thank her for bringing such fun back into my crafting game. I got a shit tonne of poms and gems now and I’m not afraid to stick them to every damn thing!
oh, tinsel jacket you say…