Crowning the Laurels

We talk a lot about how to recognize the achievements of our Young Women. The boys get all their priesthood ordinations and their scouting ceremonies, the young women rarely, depending on the ward, get the same pomp and circumstance.

Last Halloween I dressed Atticus up as a baby Spartacus, complete with an elastic headband laurel wreath, and that just made a lightbulb go off in my head. I wanted to smack my forehead that I hadn't thought of it before.

I decided that when the girls in my ward turn 16 and enter my class, we should have a little ceremony in opening exercises where we crown them with a laurel wreath and then all the rest of the Laurels give them hugs and air kisses. I thought it was just a fun goofy little thing to do until I found out that the girls were wearing their headbands to school and all the older Laurels started begging me for their own headbands.

So here's how I did it:

All I did was get a couple of different colors of green wool felt and cut a million little teardrop shapes out of them. If you can, avoid the craft felt. It's thin and will look cheap. Go for the real wool felt, you don't need much. A fat quarter will yield as many as seven or eight headbands depending on how you apply your leaves.


Then, starting at one end, I started hot gluing them on to a regular old headband so that they overlapped each other and covered up the color underneath.


Continue this way until you reach the middle of the headband, and then start again from the bottom of the other side.


You can embellish this with glitter or little flatbacked rhinestones, or just leave it the way it is. I think this would also make a great finishing touch for any of your upcoming toga parties.