Napkin Rings



May the 4th is National Star Wars Day! Use your Jedi skills to make some galactic crafts worthy of any planet in the solar system. May the 4th be with you!

 



Make dinnertime more fun with these super nerdy napkin rings!



You will need:

• Felt sheets in several different colors
• Felt glue
• Small googly eyes
• Velcro, cut into small 1/2 inch pieces
• Needle and thread

How to:

1. Before you start make some simple sketches of the characters you want to make. Keep in mind that the patterns should be very simple and that the pieces will be very small.
2. Cut long strips of different colors of felt to form the napkin ring. (Ours were about 2 inches wide by 8 inches long.) Set aside.




The napkin rings with Velcro tabs aligned to each other.

 

3. Cut small squares just slightly smaller than the width of the napkin rings. This is what your character will be placed on.
 



Pieces of Yoda on his square. I would give this to Elliott and he would have to figure out how to turn it into the character.






Pieces of Jabba




 
4. Cut pieces out for each character that you are making. Remember to keep the pieces small and to check to make sure it will fit on your square. 
5. Once all the parts for your character are cut, assemble them and secure onto square with felt glue. Use googly eyes for eyes. Glue square onto napkin ring. Let dry.

    6.    Using needle and thread, sew Velcro tabs onto napkin ring, checking to make sure they'll line up with each other. (FYI: I used  felt glue to secure the Velcro and it didn't last. I went back and sewed each piece on. A pain, but much more secure.)

    7.    Wrap napkin ring around your silverware setting and eat up!



R2D2




Ewok





Princess Leia




Yoda




Admiral Ackbar



C3PO

Thoughts:

Talk about using your imagination! It was so much fun to talk about which Star Wars characters we would make. (R2D2 and C3PO were a given since they are Elliott's favorites.) We literally spent days trying to decide and figure out how we would make them. Check out http://www.starwars.com/kids/do/crafts/napkinrings.html for some inspiration or come up with some ideas of your own. (We did a little of both.)

This was my first time using felt glue and it is my new best friend. It dried much quicker than regular fabric glue and worked great! I highly recommend it if you do this craft (or any craft with felt).

The smaller pieces were a pretty big challenge for Elliott, but surprisingly he didn't seem to mind so much because he was having such a good time trying to assemble the parts to see how the character would go together. (I cut the pieces before we started and placed each character inside it's own bag. I let Elliott choose who we would work on and he had to figure out how to put them together.) He loved it! We use these napkin rings every single meal, alternating which character we use. (Although El hasn't ventured away from R2 or 3PO.) And of course we plan on a special Star Wars dinner on May 4th:

Jabba the Hutt dogs (crescent dogs)

C3PeaOs

Vader Taters (tater tots)

Jawa Juice

Wookie Cookies

Happy crafting and May the Force be with You!

Jedi Elliott's Evaluation: I liked putting the characters together. It was like a puzzle. I liked putting all the pieces on. I use my napkin rings every day! I liked putting all of them together. We made R2D2, C3PO, General Ackbar (FYI: that's Admiral Ackbar, but no amount of correcting will convince Elliott he isn't a General), Yoda, Princess Leia, and an Ewok. Is there anyone else? And Jabba. OK! He's an Admiral! Admiral Ackbar!!