Crown Your Princess (or prince)

Making you very own crown - particularly when NOBODY is sleeping - can be quite fun and entertaining. This activity can redirect the frustrations of a tired mom when the entire gang insists that bed time really is not NOW even though the clock clearly states that bed time is slowly slipping away. When you find yourself at a loss for entertaining NON-SLEEPING BEAUTIES, just pull out these supplies and let them create their own crowns.

WHAT YOU NEED:

8 X 10 paper - various colors (construction paper or card stock probably works best)

Scissors

Plastic jewels, beads, sequins - cheep embellishments found in the local dollar store's art aisle

Glue - gooey glue, not glue sticks / the gel glue works wonderfully because it doesn't run as much

WHAT YOU DO:

Cut a 3 inch strip of the paper along the longest part of the page. Set this aside to use as the back of the crown. This is the piece that will wrap around your child's head when she is wearing her crown.

Use scrap booking scissor or regular scissors to cut a design in the top part of the wider part of the paper. Make sure you leave a large area at the bottom to be the base of the crown. Use you imagination to design the top part of the crown - scallop shaped, triangle shaped, etc.

Let your child choose several of the plastic jewels to adorn her crown.

Put a drop of glue on the crown wherever your child wishes to place the jewel. Let her place the jewel. Repeat as often as necessary until the crown is fully decorated. Older children can work alone on this stage of the project or with minimal supervision.

Note: It is best to use small, light weight pieces to avoid an overly heavy crown that will droop when worn.

Use a bit of glue on one side of the smaller piece of paper to attach that to one side of the crown. This will be wrapped all the way around to fit your child's head after all the pieces are fully dry. It needs to be placed near the middle of the bottom portion of the crown.

Lay the crown on a flat surface to dry over night. When all the pieces are dry, wrap the band around to the other side of the crown. Measure to be sure the crown will fit your child's head properly. You need to be sure it won't slide down over her eyes and that it is large enough to fit onto her brow. Yeah - this is definitely the tricky part. Try getting a squirmy 2 yr old to sit still long enough to do this particular measurement. I dare you!!!

Allow your children to wear their new crowns where ever you may go for the entire day. They will absolutely love the attention that strangers will dole out on them, especially when they declare with glee that they made the crown themselves - (in the middle of the night, no less, when they should have been sleeping).