Kid-Designed Felt Banner

Now that our kids are older they are getting excited about creating their own holiday decor!  (Much to my delight!)

Materials

• Felt (We used a felt sheet for the banner base and other colours for the image)
• Scissors
• Dowel
• Beads
• Pencil/eraser
• Paper
• Fabric glue

* If your beads don’t fit snuggly on the end of your dowel, you may need a bit of wood glue.

We always find these items helpful too:

• Smock
• Craft tray

Directions

• Don your smock.  Glue or sew your rick rack onto the back of your background felt sheet and allow it to dry overnight.  You could skip this step or snip off two of the corners of the felt rectangle that would form the bottom of the banner if you want.

• Sketch out an idea for your Halloween banner.

• Cut your pieces out of felt and arrange them on your felt square to see how they fit.   You could cut out your sketch and use it as a pattern, pinning or taping it to your felt and cutting around it again.  Or you could increase the size as we did.  A tip for cutting the letters that require a hole such as the “o” is to fold the letter in half, making a small snip which will then allow you to slide your scissors in to cut out the interior circle.  Our son also thought it pertinent to mention that when cutting use your less dominant hand to rotate the material being cut which is also a clever tip!

• Twist your beads onto the ends of your dowel.  Ours happened to have fit snuggly, but if yours don’t, use a bit of wood glue.

• Wrap one end of your felt sheet over the dowel and glue together as shown.  Allow to dry overnight.  You could also sew this and slide it on your dowel, attaching the bead after.

• Glue on your pieces and allow to dry overnight.  Attach a ribbon or cord and hang up your banner to add some kid-made Halloween fun to your wall!

Purpose

• Celebrating various holidays.
• Planning and executing a specific task.
• Developing one’s fine motor skills, by cutting various materials.

Safety Notes

• We suggest that you wear a smock and use a craft tray to protect your clothing and surfaces.
• Use scissors with care and adult supervision.
• Cord, yarn etc. can be a strangulation hazard, therefore be sure to use with direct supervision and for its intended purpose.
• Beads can be a choking hazard therefore be sure to keep them out of the reach of children ages 0-3 years of age or those that tend to put things into their mouths.