Halloween Headdress - Some details

I have had some online friends inquire about my process of making my Halloween 2018 headdress, so I thought I would share a few pics and short videos I tried to make during the process. It is not comprehensive, but it may give a little helpful insight?

First of all, materials:
One inch wide transparent plastic headband ($5 locally at Display and Costume)
Clear plastic hair combs
Thin beading wire (I think mine was .024")
Heavy beading wire (I got 18 gauge)
Wire tools (mainly something to clip wires with, but some small pliers are helpful in twisting wire when needed)
High temp glue gun
Multi-temp glue (100 mini-sticks)
Various beads, jewelry bits, and some wedding/holiday floral decorations*

*I was in around the Halloween season, so Christmas stuff was already out. I chose silver, glitter, frosted things for my theme. Luckily, even in the "off season", wedding floral stuff can often have similar glam.

For the glue gun, I prefer high melt for projects like this. Specifically, I was using materials that would not melt under the heat of the glue, which is your number one consideration. After that is considering how strong of a bond you want and your working time. I find that high temp guns have a shorter working time--that is, it cools and sets a little more rapidly. While some might prefer the longer working time and flexibility of a low-temp glue, for this project I was going to be making a lot of items made just from glue, with no structure underneath them; and additionally, they would need multiple layers of glue, where I would need it to set, then lay down another layer on top. My process was sped up a little bit with a faster-setting glue.

Instructions

Prep the headband: I took the hair combs and lined them up where I wanted them on the headband, roughly about 3-4 inches to either side of the center of the headband. I made a little mark with a Sharpie (very tiny, just so I could see). Then I laid down a line of glue on the top of the comb and glued them to the underside of the headband.
Taking some jewelry wire, I anchored them in place further. I eventually decided I was going to wrap them entirely and lay glue down over it, for extra security and to keep the wire from poking.
Then I started playing around and gluing the biggest pieces and background pieces in place. I knew I wanted something kind of horn-like, so I put these "frosted branches" on either side.
Then I started making a lot of "icicles". These are just multiple layers of hot glue laid down. I lightly oiled the bottom of a glass baking dish and used this as my surface. You can use any smooth, heat-tolerant surface to do this on, including ceramic plates, metal pans, non-stick trays, etc. The oil helps the glue to release. Re-apply between batches, and be sparing--it doesn't need to be dripping with oil to work. Some crafters use Pam, but I just used a paper towel with some canola oil.
I made a short video. I tried to replace the audio, but some stuff on YouTube as an option was either too short or too irritating. So you may get to hear my listening to the Wicked Broadway soundtrack, or a collection of inspirational Unitarian sermons a friend sent to me. Lucky you!
Some more footage of releasing and cutting to shape when needed.
And more, this with me doing some more cleanup with fingers and scissors to get rid of fly-aways and errant glue loops.
And finally, this isn't my headdress but my husband's, which is all made of glue entirely to make an icicle crown. I thought I'd show a little bit of the gluing/attachment. You do this for 15 minutes, and you'll figure out what you need to do for your specific project.
Then I started adding the icicles to my headdress, continuing to add more background stuff (branches, silver glitter doo-dads). And when I felt I had all my icicles in place, I started "encrusting" it with some jewels at the base of the icicles. I didn't want it to appear too "formal" or regular, as I wanted this character to be more "fae royalty" and found-objects, so I made a point to make it a little asymmetrical as I went along. This is NOT easy for a Virgo, I am telling you.
A close up of me starting embellisment. Nothing fancy.
A better look at the overlapping icicles. The three middle there are different on purpose. I bought some glitter covered plastic spiral "icicles" at Display & Costume and covered them with glue to make them irregular and smooth to match the others. These are more rigid and form the central part of the crown.
To help me as I went along, I laid out a collection of icicles on my work surface, which is an old broke-ass cutting mat which conveniently has a ruler on it. Then I could see the length of each and it was easier to make the crown peaked by grading the height of the icicles placed.
And then here is my final result. The center piece was on clearance in JoAnn's jewelry section. I bought this one for this project, but any time I am there I peruse their clearance stuff and will buy cheap materials to add to my collection for future projects. On this project, I am using about 75% new stuff, and about 25% from my stash.