the crown jewels

Oliver and Cyan’s school held a party to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, with a hat competition for each year group. We decided to make crowns.





Oliver’s crown is based on the St. Edwards Crown, worn by the Queen at her coronation.





Cyan’s is a mini replica of the Imperial State Crown, worn by the Queen for important state events.

It’s amazing what can be done with some corrugated cardboard, a little gold spray-paint and lots of acrylic gems and other embellishments! I think it’s safe to say I got a little carried away with the whole project! I made the crown bases, Oli and Cyan had fun helping with the spray-painting and loved sticking all their ‘jewels’ in place. They also enjoyed researching the real crowns, and reading all about the amazing gemstones they have. I remember having quite a fascination with the crown jewels after I went to see them in the Tower of London when I was a child.

Oliver won his competition; Cyan didn’t win hers, but she did just win a drawing competition at school the previous week and I guess you can’t win ’em all!