While I was sitting outside spray painting my crown, my neighbor came out onto the porch. He looked at what I was doing.
“I’m making a crown,” I said.
“You know you could just go down to Burger King and get one,” he said.
“I did,” I replied.
Using a free Burger King Crow, I made this decadent steampunk crown!
I wanted an opulent British tiered crown look. There was a cool tiny decor crown at World Market, but it was too tiny, so I wanted to add more to it. I went through the Burger King drive-through, picked up one of the crowns they give away to children (or adults, or whoever asks for one) and I took it home to upcycle it.
First I got a Burger King Crown and placed it on some cotton fabric.
I started by gluing a cotton backing to the crown to make it more stable. I used cheapo cotton scraps — very thin stuff — and applied it to the cardboard crown using Mod Podge. I glued the crown, laid down the cotton, the glued the top of the cotton.
When all the glue was dry, I cut away the cotton backing to fit the shape of the crown.
The cotton backing dried to make the crown much more stable — though I will admit, it was not stable enough to support all the gears I ended up adding.
I used some gear findings that I bought at Michael’s. The fit the little circles on the crown perfectly.
I also bought some clock hands and brads to use on the crown. I extended the crown’s spikes with clock hands, and even added a little keyhole to the front center. For some of the pieces I clamped them as the glue dried.
I also added scrapbooking beads/pearls and little scrapbooking filigree swirls. To glue them on I used Tacky Glue, then went over the top of everything with Mod Podge. I closed the crown to form the circle and then took it outside to paint.
I painted the crown using gold spray paint. After it was dry, I added some black acrylic paint in the cracks and wiped away the excess.
I had some Worbla scraps left over from making Worbla things. I used a few pieces to make a structural support for the tiny World Market crown (which was also painted gold).
Once all the pieces were glued together, the crown was finished!
When you look at the finished steampunk crown you will see all the little findings, clock hands and gears!
The crown is somewhat fragile, but only at the base of each crown spike. This is because the gears at the tops of the spikes are too heavy. You can see I used clock hands to reinforce each spike.
This crown was used as a prop for my vampire. He wants to be king, so he kills royalty and steals their stuff.
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