I know it has taken me some time but I finally got around to completing and photographing my idea of a custom crown out of chef's hat.
Here is a link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/37491720@N04/6202306116/
As I have not used my camera for quite a while, I did not realize that there was a problem with the focus so no matter how many times I tried, I could not get the second picture to come out clearly.
I would have preferred to use only stickers but couldn't get the sticker slivers to stick to the top the way I liked so decided to use acrylic paint instead of messing around with glue.

Cool! But in the future, try posting your custom parts in the chop-shop.

ok will do. although my main intent was to inspire more possibilities in BF manufacturing a cheap yet decent alternative to the official Lego crown which Lego seems to be quite satisfied with.
I'm not satisfied with my "drilled and painted crown" but until I get another option it will have to do...