DLTK's Holiday Crafts for Kids
Valentine's Day Crown or Hat

A simple construction paper 'hat' the kids have fun making, decorating and wearing on Valentine's Day!  Kaitlyn's favorite part is the springy pipecleaner heart "antennas".

We like making tissue paper flowers to decorate it, but you can use markers, stickers, glitter or gel pens instead.

Materials:

• red construction paper, 
• 2 white pipe cleaners
• pencil,
• scissors,
• tape,
• printer,
• paper,
• white tissue paper,
• white thread
• Optional:  stickers, markers, glitter or gel pens to decorate.

Instructions:

• Print Valentine's Day template of choice or cut out your own heart shapes from construction paper.
• Color and decorate the craft as necessary (if using the B&W version).
• Cut out the template pieces OR freehand cut 4 heart shapes from construction paper.
• Cut 2 or 3 strips of construction paper about 4" wide and as long as you can make them.  Decorate them as you like with markers, stickers or glitter.
• Tape the pieces end to end to make a really long piece.
• Wrap around the child's head to measure how long you need and trim off the excess (don't tape into a circle yet).
• Make 5 or 6 tissue paper flowers and tape to the front of the crown:
  • Stack 3 or 4 squares of tissue paper on top of each other (size should be about 4"x4")
  • Fan fold (accordion fold) the tissue paper.
  • Tie tightly in the center with a piece of thread.
  • Separate the layers one at a time.
  • Roll a piece of scotch tape to attach the flower to the front of the crown (long construction paper strip).
• Wrap the pipecleaner around a pencil to make a 'spring' with it.  An adult can wrap the first couple loops and then hand it over to the child to finish.
• Straighten about 1/2 inch of the top and bottom of the spring (so it's easier to do the taping).
• Repeat with the other pipecleaner.
• Tape a paper heart to the top of each pipecleaner.  Flip over and glue or tape the 3rd and 4th heart onto the back of the 1st and 2nd (to sandwich the pipecleaner in between the paper hearts).
• Tape both pipecleaners to the long piece of construction paper so they either sit at the front of the head or the sides of the head.
• Tape the construction paper ends together to form a crown and put it on!

Craft Templates:

• Close template window when done printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template       (color)   or   (B&W)

Printable version of these instructions