Family Wizard of Oz Costumes - DIY Glinda Crown

Once Emma’s Glinda dress was well under way, I turned my attention to the Glinda crown. This was going to be easy! After all, I had a pattern, right? Well…

This is when I discovered that the pattern made a four-pointed crown. This was disappointing for a couple of reasons:

1. The crown Glinda wears in the movie has more than four points, so this design looks, well, dumb.

2. The human eye is attracted to arrangements of odd numbers, so four points looks awkward.

I decided to add more points to the crown. I taped the pattern paper to the window. (Yes, I had to work around the “art installment” that was already up there.)

Then, I modified my own point shape (I had to make them a little skinnier than the originals in order to fit.) and created a new pattern over the existing shape. (My new pattern was designed “on the fold” so I only had to trace three and a half new points!)

I traced around the edge of a small, plastic lid to “grade” the new curves between my new points.

I am planning on making my pattern available to you as a PDF in the near future.

I bought the stiffest sew-in interfacing I could find at JoAnn. It was pretty much like very sturdy felt. If I could go back in time, I would have ironed the interfacing before I used it. It still had a bend in it from being wrapped around the bolt. However, I was pressed for time (you’re going to hear me say that a lot), so I skipped that step. I thought that I could get away with it because the crown was going to be curved, anyway. Not quite. The result was a slightly misshaped crown. I will experiment with re-shaping it and write about that experience in a future blog post.

I cut two crown shapes; one out of interfacing and one out of the thrifted, pink, sparkle fabric leftover from making the sleeves for the Glinda dress. Then, I applied Fray Check to the edges of the fabric layer to prevent it from, well, fraying. Fray Check is an amazing product! It is a quick-drying, glue-like substance with a thin consistency. It bonds to fabric and seals raw edges of material. You have to be careful with it, though! It is permanent and can spoil your project, carpet, or clothes if you drip it on the wrong places! You will also want to avoid applying it to part of a costume that could chafe against the skin, as the product hardens the edge of the material.

I turned to Pinterest for images that would guide me in embellishing the Glinda crown. I noted the silver, glittering lines radiating from the jeweled center and the curved lines fanning downward from each crown point. I drew these designs on my paper pattern by folding the crown pattern in half. I opened the pattern from its fold drew the line designs on one half. Then, I folded the pattern again and pressed it against a window. The light shining through helped me to trace the design from one side to the other side of the pattern. Then, I traced those lines one more time so that they would appear on the front side of the pattern as a mirror image to the first lines I drew. I hope that this makes sense! Sorry I don’t have pictures for this part.

I opened the pattern again. I lay the pattern on our coffee table. Then, I cut open a clear, plastic bag. I lay that over the paper pattern and then lay the fabric cut-out of the crown on top. The clear plastic acted as a protective barrier between my paper pattern and my fabric (not to mention protecting the table top). Then, I glued silver, holographic sequin trim to the bottom edge of the crown. Then, I carefully traced glitter fabric paint onto the fabric, using the lines I drew on the paper pattern as my guide. It was easy to see the design through the clear plastic bag and the sheer fabric.

I *should* have let the paint dry before moving to the next step, but I didn’t have the luxury of time! I had to move right ahead and glue on rhinestones and sequins, even though the fabric paint was still wet. This resulted in my accidentally dipping parts of my hands into wet paint, from time to time. Fortunately, I was able to fix the smudges.

Wet paint notwithstanding, it was so much fun to create the sparkly design in the center of the crown.
I left this decorated fabric overlay of the crown to dry overnight. It was super satisfying to peel it from the clear plastic bag, the next morning!

I applied glue around the edge of the interfacing cut-out for the crown. Then, I placed the decorated fabric over-lay on top and pressed it onto the glue. At this point, I also traced around the top edge of the crown points with the glitter fabric paint. Glitter puff paint takes a while to dry, due to its thick consistency. We were a few hours away from trick-or-treating, at this point, so I used a blow-dryer on the “cool” setting to help speed up the drying process!

Once the paint dried, I had Emma model the crown for me so I could mark where I needed to fasten it in the back. If I could do things over, I would have changed two things about what I did:

1. I thought I made the crown fit her snugly, but I should have made it even tighter. The crown ended up being slightly too large, so it tended to creep back on her head throughout the evening. (It’s slipping back a little in the photo, above.)

2. I should have sewn the back edges of the crown together to make it easier to adjust its size in the future. However, I was short on time, so I chose to hot glue where I overlapped the back edges of the crown. I could probably still peel them apart for re-sizing if I need to…And I might need to, because I found this amazing, pink prom dress at Goodwill. It was brand new with the tags still attached! The dress is more of a nude-blush than pink, which is actually closer to the color of the Glinda movie costume.

*Something* tells me that I need to turn this dress into a grown-up-sized Glinda costume. What do you think?