Felt Joy Banner

We had our 6th annual Christmas Craft Day at school on Friday,  150 kids, 12 crafts, one morning!  A big thanks to all the volunteers who helped with prep and running the craft stations on the day.

That was why the blog was quiet last week.  I was knee deep in all the preparations!

I have had a few inquiries as to how this all comes about.  Basically Grade 1,2 and 3 rotate thru 12 craft stations in one morning. They can make all 12 or spend more time perfecting only a few.


Now that it is over I thought I would show you all the crafts from this year over the next few days.  First up is the Felt Joy Banner. 

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- red, green , and white felt

- tacky glue

- glue gun or sewing machine

- scissors

- embellishments

- small bell

- dowel

- pruning shears

- craft wire

PROCEDURE:

Cut a rectangle of felt in either red or green.  The dimensions we used was 10" x 5".

You need to make a pocket to hold the dowel.  Now you can sew it or glue it.  With 150 of these to be prepped we hot glued them all.

Fold over an inch and secure in place.

Now I have the pocket for my dowel.  I used natural bamboo garden stakes that were cut into 6 inch long lengths.  Cut with pruning shears.

Out of white felt cut a letter "J" and a "Y".  Make an "O" out of red or green.  I used a letter stencil to make a template or pattern.  I cut the template out of recycled cardboard (a cereal box).

Lay your template backwards on your felt and trace around with a fine black sharpie.  Cut with small sharp scissors.  Ones with a pointy tip work the best.  When clipping out the letter try to clip away the sharpie line.  Because we traced it backwards any remaining sharpie will be on the
back side.  Use tacky glue and glue into place on your banner.

Add some embellishments.  I scouted thru the Dollar store and found these shiny fabric Holly leaves.

We clipped them apart and added them to our "O".

I also found these glitter balls which worked great as Holly berries.  You could also cut the leaves out of felt and use red buttons for the berries.

I bought bells at the Dollar store as well.  Make a little hole in the felt at the bottom of your banner.

Push the loop of the string thru the hole, pass the bell thru the loop and your bell is now securely fastened.

Take a 12 inch piece of craft wire.  Twist onto one end of the dowel and then on the other.  This is the hanger.

That's it.



3 years ago we made this JOY sign but I didn't have enough cardboard this year for 150 signs so we went with felt instead.

You can find the tutorial for this sign HERE.  I tend to only repeat crafts every 3 years so the individual student doesn't get any repeats during their 3 years participating.

 Some other crafts we revisited this year was the Little Snowman.

We also did these paper trees.














I'll be back next time with more Christmas Craft Day activities.