Carolyn J. Braden • 3 Minute Read
How to Make a Magical Pipe Cleaner Color Changing DIY Tiara
In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a magical color-changing tiara using simple pipe cleaners! This easy DIY tiara tutorial is perfect for crafters and costume lovers and the kids that love to play dress up in your life. Whether you need a quick craft project for a party, cosplay, or just for fun, this step-by-step guide will show you how to make a beautiful homemade crown that shifts colors like magic.
I love the color changing beads!
The Inspiration
I had the idea to make a fun spiral pipe cleaner craft with pony beads in the summer of 2025. In my tests, I came up with several versions using different color palettes. For this DIY tiara tutorial, I was inspired by some fun iridescent flowers I found at TJ Maxx. I then decided to play with color changing pony beads, and some fun colored pipe cleaners and I created this simple tiara that is a fun crafting idea for many.
I love pink and purple which added to the tiara’s flower color inspiration
More Pipe Cleaner Crafts
My other pipe cleaner craft tutorials are fun and easy too and performed well on my socials. They are crafts that can all be made in under 30 minutes and are for ages 7+. A younger child could make one of these crafts with adult supervision. If you want more craft ideas for kids, check out these 10 clever crafts from Better Homes and Gardens Australia.
DIY Pipe Cleaner Crown (using cookie cutters and pipe cleaners)
DIY Pipe Cleaner Wands (using only skewers and pipe cleaners)
My pup Minnie Pearl loves my tiara
See me make a pipe cleaner crown in my car craft below or via my YouTube channel @carolynjbraden:
Do I Have to Add the Flowers and Beads?
Nope…you do not have to add the flowers like I did. I merely LOVE iridescent anything, so when I found them, I knew they were going to pop up on many of my crafts. The tiara is cute on its own AND you don’t even have to add pony beads. The color changing pony beads just adds an element of surprise and reminds me of the Hypercolor tee I had in the 90’s.
These pony beads change color in UV light
Can I Make This Tiara in Other Colors?
You can make this in any color scheme you want. Make one to match your favorite sports team for tailgating parties or to support your children’s teams and school groups. I also made a green, blue and gold version as one of my tests and you can see it here in my FAZIT glitter freckle tutorial.
Showing the beads with the sun and without
Now for the pipe cleaner DIY tiara tutorial. All links are for products I used from either Temu (new app users can use my code afe55197 or my link here for 30% off), Walmart or Amazon. Here’s what you will need to make it.
Supplies:
Pipe Cleaners (My iridescent pipe cleaners are from Amazon and get the pink and purple ones in this set I bought on Amazon and also Temu has a nice sparkly set for under $6)
Color Changing Beads (get them here on Amazon or you can also purchase them from Walmart)
Pony beads (I also added some purple sparkle pony beads and got them a set on Amazon)
Faux flowers (mine were a TJ Maxx random find, but you could use any artificial flower or just leave them off this project)
Headband (I LOVE making crafts with these adjustable headbands from Walmart as they stretch and can be molded to all heads, making them very comfortable)
Hot Glue (only if adding the flowers, and I LOVE my cordless and rechargeable hot glue gun set from Amazon)
Check out my 1-minute video tutorial for this project on my TikTok now or coming soon here and to my YouTube channel @carolynjbraden!
The supplies I used for this tiara
How To:
Gather three pipe cleaners of your color scheme choice. I pulled an iridescent, a pink and purple together. Place them under the headband, pull until they will be even and fold in half around the headband.
Placing the pipe cleaners
Twist them together (around the headband) several times until they are tightly held onto the headband.
How the twisted pipe cleaners look once on the headband
I repeated this process with three different colored pipe cleaners, then three iridescent pipe cleaners and alternated until I had twisted about 17 groups of three pipe cleaner bunches onto the headband.
I twisted on about 17 groups of 3 pipe cleaners
I then wrapped iridescent pipe cleaners around the sides and down the headband until it was concealed. I left the parts around the “ear pieces” without pipe cleaners so it wouldn’t irritate my skin or ears.
Covering the headband with pipe cleaners
I then wrapped the pipe cleaners on the crown around my finger to “curl” them. I repeated this until all of the pipe cleaners were curled. I curled some tiny and some big for variation.
Curling the pipe cleaners
After curling, I slid some pony beads onto the curls. If you are concerned with the falling off, you can fold down the end of the pipe cleaners a bit to “lock” the beads in place.
Cutting the stem off my iridescent flowers
Lastly, I cut a few flowers off the bunches I purchased. I had to cut a bit of the stem off too.
Adding the flowers
I then hot glued on the flowers at the base of the headband, holding them in place until the glue cooled off.
I adore pink and purple and have since I was kid!
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Carolyn J. Braden is the owner of Carolyn’s Blooming Creations is a regular contributor and editor for CBC. She has been featured in numerous media publications such as InStyle Magazine, on HGTV, on Bustle.com, and more. She is the author of the books Georgia McMasters in Amethyst Lake Cemetery, How To Be Yourself: 3 Ways To Help You Being You, and the illustrator for the children’s book Bridging Connections. She is a former classroom teacher that now dedicates her life to educating others on how to live their most healthy, creative and happy life. Learn more about her visiting our About Us page.