Cray-Flower – DIY Felt Mayflower Coloring StationEven the adults will be fighting for a place at the kids table when you add this fun rolling color station to your Thanksgiving festivities. This ship is a fun Thanksgiving craft they will be thrilled to play with all year round.
Passing crayons back and forth might prove to be more fun than the coloring.
Cardboard scrap to fit boat bottom – you can also add some to the ships sides if you’d like to make them more sturdy but the doubled up felt will work fine.
*Matching thread
This Felt Thanksgiving Mayflower ship also makes one heck of a pirate boat.
Cut the wave pattern from blue felt and the remaining pieces from brown felt – save some scraps to help attach the trolley later.
Lets begin with the wave wheels since they will need to dry.
Paint wave design onto wheel as shown on templates.
Repeat with all wheels. Paint dowels if desired and set aside to dry.
You don’t need to assemble the wheels yet.
Sew the two boat backs (marked on template) together using an overcast stitch and brown thread. Do not add cardboard to this piece since you will need it to curve. Set aside.
Sew shelf pieces together along the sides with an overcast stitch. Set aside.
Add waves with matching thread to opposite sides of boat as shown. The curve of the wave should point in the direction of the rounded boat front.
Sew second plain boat side to each side. You can place a piece of cardboard cut slightly smaller than the side template into the sides if desired but the boat will hold up just fine without it.
Match sides up with waves facing outward and plain sides inward. Stitch rounded part of fronts together with an overcast stitch, stop when you get to the flat bottom.
Cut a boat bottom slightly smaller than the template from cardboard.
Sew two boat bottom pieces together with an overcast stitch and fill with cardboard for added stability.
Sew ship bottom closed.
Bend sides around boat bottom and overcast stitch to base with brown thread.
Continue until both sides are sewn down to bottom.
Your felt Mayflower boat should look like this. (But less blurry unless you need glasses)
Bend back piece around the open space in the back of the boat and overcast stitch from the top to the boat base.
You’re almost done!
Fit shelf into felt Mayflower (or rather Crayflower) back. Attach with a few stitches along each side or felt glue into place.
Now that we have finished our felt ship, let’s make it roll!
Use scrap felt to stitch a 2″ wide rectangle slightly shorter than each of your axles to boat bottom .
Sew down along the long sides. The rectangle should lay flat.
Slip axle through and fit wheels onto both ends. You can further secure these with glue if desired but they should fit on pretty tightly.
The wheels will spin inside their felt shaft making your Mayflower mobile.
LOOK OUT PLYMOUTH ROCK!
Cut some of the paper into 5 x 7 pieces to fit into the top shelf.
Fill with crayons and inhale that sweet new crayon smell.
Add full size printer paper to the ship to create ships larger sail.
This super easy candle mat is a great way to use up those fall colored felt scraps just add a pumpkin scented candle and it makes a great hostess gift this Thanksgiving.
You will need:
White felt 1/4 yard
Scraps of felt in fall colors
used here:
Gold Nugget
Fresh Cut Grass
Autumn Leaves
Beet
Courtyard
Hot Chocolate
Tomato Soup
Banana Cream Pie
coordinating thread
Brown embroidery thread
Step 1:
Cut 2- 12″ circles from the white felt. Feel free to adjust this to whatever size suits your needs or make it really easy and just trace a plate. Set one circle aside.
Step 2:
Begin cutting random blobs from scraps of fall colored felts. Place and pin at top, bottom and sides of one of your white felt circles. Try to make each “tree” a little different from the others. Fill in the rest of the space and pin when the placement looks right.
Step 3:
Using brown embroidery thread create tree trunks and branches with a quick running stitch along each tree.
Step 4:
Once all the branches and trunks have been stitched begin stitching down your trees with coordinating thread.
Step 5:
Once all the trees have been sewn into place, stack white felt circles together and trim any uneven edges before overcast stitching them together with white thread.
These napkin rings are made from paper but could easily be made in felt.
The post suggests paper but in black, or any of our 140+ colors of felt, these pilgrim napkin rings would be even more enchanting (and a google eye wouldn’t hurt them either).
