Paper Floral Crown Craft Inspired by “Backyard Fairies”

“Backyard Fairies” by Phoebe Wahl

This story is an absolute must for fairy fans!!  We adore it over here.  It tells the story of a little girl who believes in fairies and wants so badly to see them.  She sees evidence of them all around her such as waking up to find braids in her puppies fur, but she just can’t seem to spot them.  However, all is made well in the end when a gift of a floral crown shows her that not only are fairies real, but they are fond of her too.

Readers will delight in the fact that they can spot the fairies in the illustrations that our main protagonist always seems to just miss.  Plus, the illustrations are amazing.  Each detail and whimsical touch is perfection and has me wanting to search the woods for a fairy friend too.

Click here to purchase “Backyard Fairies” *affiliate link

Tissue Paper Floral Crown Craft

As mentioned above, the special gift that the little girl receives at the end of the book is a floral crown and that is what let’s her know that fairies do exist.  After I read that I obviously thought it would be wonderful if we made fairy crowns of our own in celebration of our undying belief in wee folk.  You can certainly make some out of real flowers, but we opted for a paper version so that it could be made year round and last for days.

My kids had the funnest time making them.  My two year old squealed with delight with each flower that she glued.  She totally thought it was magical.  The end results were just as pleasing and they were worn immediately thereafter.  I love that these crowns only take a few supplies and that it is simple enough for a two year old to do, especially if the pieces are prepped.  This one is a real winner.

Supplies:

• green construction paper
• stapler
• colorful tissue paper
• liquid craft glue
• pencil

Process:

1. Prep your tissue paper by cutting it into many little squares.  They can be different sizes to created different sized flowers on your crown.  Mine averaged about one inch by one inch.
2. Cut some green leaves from green tissue paper.  I just eyeballed mine and made them into almond shapes.
3. Cut your green construction paper length wise at the width that you would like your crowns to be.  Mine were about one inch.
4. For a small child’s crown you will probably need to staple two of the 11 inch strips together.
5. Start by gluing your leaves along the edges of your crown.  We opted to have our stick out.
6. Next, make the tissue paper flowers.   The first step is to select a tissue paper square and then, placing the flat end of your pencil in the center, crinkle the paper around your pencil.
7. Then, dip the tissue paper in the glue.
8. Finally, press the tissue paper onto your crown and then remove the pencil.
9. The crinkled tissue square should stick up like a flower.
10. Continue this process until you have your strip filled with as many flowers as you like.  Then, using the child’s head for reference, find where the overlap in the ring of your crown is.  Once you know your spot, staple it together into a ring and you are done!

We hope that you have as much fun creating them as we did and that they give you hours of magical fun afterwards!  If you give this Beyond the Book activity a try I’d love to hear how it goes! Share it on Instagram and tag me! (I’m on Instagram as @book.nerd.mommy) or even just comment here with your thoughts. It would make my day! Or to simply save for later pin the image below.