Knight’s Shield Craft | Birthday Party

My son is obsessed with medieval times, Merlin, knights and swords. So when he turned 6, the logical birthday party theme was “knights.” There were games involving jousting and dragons, a knight piñata, and a castle-shaped cake, but the thing the kids seemed most into was the shield craft. A blank canvas that they could use to create their very own coat of arms, and to protect themselves against the (provided) foam swords of their fellow partygoers. All you need is some duct tape and a few cardboard boxes and you can have a craft with endless possibilities.

By: JodiMaterials and Tools:

– cardboard

– paper (for a pattern)

– sharp exacto/carpet knife

– duct tape

– stickers/markers/paints, etc. (anything you can find for decorating the shield).

Tutorial:

First, make a pattern of one half of a shield shape (for inspiration, Google shield images). Take your cardboard (luckily, I had recently had a fridge delivered – cardboard bonanza!) and trace your pattern, flip it and trace again to create your shield shape. Now take your exacto knife (no kids allowed in this part) and cut out the shield shape.

Take your duct tape and cover all the edges, for a “border” and fold a piece of duct tape in half and tape it to the back of the shield for a handle.

Provide your kids with markers, paint, sparkle glue, stickers, etc. and let them go nuts with their very own shield.

I made 14 of these and it took me a few hours because I had a very dull knife, but you could make a couple for an afternoon rainy-day craft, in a very short amount of time.