I am so excited to share my dear friend, Marcy Beaupied, on Happy Home Fairy today! Marcy leads an after school art program at various South Florida schools called Project Artwork. Her classes have become so popular that Marcy created a website called Project Artwork at Home to help families everywhere inspire and encourage their young artists with creative project ideas. With Father’s Day just around the corner, Marcy has an amazing project and FREE Printable that all the dads will love!
Hey Happy Home Fairy readers! My name is Marcy and I blog at Project Artwork at Home. I am so excited to be here today! I have the COOLEST Father’s Day craft for kids of all ages, and the best part is, it’s SUPER easy with my FREE Printable coloring sheets!
Dads work so hard and do so much for their families, I thought it would be fun to award them merit badges.
These merit badges can be printed right from your computer onto Avery Sticker Project Paper and cut out and stuck on a paper sash.
My husband loves to quote the paraphrased line from the old Treasure of the Sierra Madre movie: “Badges! We don’t need no stinking badges!”
But I disagree.
If the boy scouts can earn merit badges for using a compass or public speaking, then I think my husband certainly deserves a badge for teaching our son how to throw the football farther, fixing our leaky faucet, or grilling his 2032nd hamburger patty!
This project incorporates the use of symbolism. In art, a symbol is a simple, recognizable object that stands for an idea or image that might be otherwise too difficult to depict. Early civilizations used pictographs or hieroglyphics as a form of communicating. Renaissance art made use of symbols to depict religious ideas. Nowadays, we are used to an icon-rich culture with all manner of apps on our phones and tablets.
Young children automatically use symbols in their art without even thinking about it: hearts to show love, little flying M’s for birds, zig-zags to show electricity.
For this project, we will play off of our children’s familiarity with symbols. They will design simple symbols that communicate an idea about something their dad does for them or the family.
I have provided a FATHER’S DAY MERIT BADGE COLORING SHEET with some ready-made symbols that could be used to honor Dad for different things like doing family devotions, bringing home some donuts, taking out the trash, or handyman projects.
My personal fave is the “Bringing Your Wife a Cup of Coffee” merit badge:)
**Click here for a list of the meaning of each merit badge.**
I have also provided a BLANK MERIT BADGE COLORING SHEET so your kiddos can design their own specific symbols to award Dad a merit badge for something more specific and unique to him. My husband is always willing to do a “milk-run” whenever we run out of milk for the endless bowls of cereal consumed in our house, so we made him a milk-jug merit badge!
Even the youngest kids can draw a simple image inside each circle and color it.
I asked my daughter about a particular symbol she had drawn. She told me it was the “Monster Badge”. When I asked her why she made a monster badge, she said, “Because Daddy always pretends to be the Daddy-monster when he’s tucking me in!”
Did Dad take your daughter to a special Princess Dance? Make a badge with a tiara. Did he rescue the pet cat out of a tree? Give him a happy cat-face badge. Did he teach your teenage son how to drive, or get the family safely to your road-trip destination? Award him the “Steering Wheel Badge.”
My brother-in-law, attached a sled to the back of his Skid-Steer for my nieces and nephew this past winter. I can just picture the badge for that!
Have fun, be creative, and make it personal!!!
Here’s how you can make this Project Artwork at home:
Project Ages: Any age!
Project Time Frame: 45 minutes to 1 hour
Project Materials:
- printed coloring sheets
- Avery Sticker Project Paper–or just print on regular paper and use glue dots or tape to stick onto sash
- 2 sheets of 12 X 18 construction paper in your choice of color
- liquid glue
- scissors
- pencil
- Ultra-fine Sharpie or other thin-nib black permanent marker- I like these from OOLY
- colored pencils or permanent markers
- glue dots, or small, stickable VELCRO square
Project Set-Up:
- Print the Father’s Day Merit Badge Coloring Sheet with symbols onto your Avery Sticker Project Paper.
- Print the Blank Merit Badge Coloring Sheet onto the sticker paper if your child wants to draw their own symbols.
Project Artwork:
Step 1: Color Your Father’s Day Merit Badge Coloring Sheet
Colored pencils work great on the Avery Sticker paper, as well as permanent markers. For the Blank Merit Badge Coloring Sheet, I recommend your child draw their symbol in pencil first, then outline in black marker. Once it is drawn and outlined, they can go ahead and color it.
After all the Merit Badges are colored and designed, move on to Step 2.
Step 2: Assemble the Merit Badge Sash
You will need to grab those two pieces of 12 x 18 construction paper. I used black, but you can choose whatever color you like. Fold each sheet into a giant hot dog bun – long sides touching.
Then follow the diagram below.
Once you’ve glued each piece end-to end, you will have one very long strip. This will be draped over Dad later and fastened with either a glue dot or a VELCRO square like so:
Step 3: Cut Out Each Merit Badge
Step 4: Stick or Glue Your Merit Badges Onto the Sash
This could be done ahead of time, in which case you will fold your sash in half without creasing, and stick your badges on from the folded edge down. I had my daughter remove the adhesive back from the round stickers and place the badges in rows of three like the real boy scout badges I had seen online.
NOTE: It was QUITE challenging to remove the sticker backs on the circles that didn’t fall along the Sticker Paper perforation. We solved this problem by folding the circle in half first, which seemed to loosen up the back enough for us to peel it off.
OR, as an alternative to doing it all ahead of time, I think this idea is a winner:
The boy scouts have special merit badge AWARD CEREMONIES! So we are planning on presenting my husband with the blank sash and awarding him the merit badges one-at-a-time while he enjoys a great candlelit dinner, along with our favorite Father’s Day dessert-tradition of root beer floats.
Guys, this is 100-times more fun and creative than a greeting card! Dads often feel unappreciated for all that they do. Let’s show them some love and gratitude this Father’s Day!
Click HERE for your FREE Printable Father’s Day Merit Badge Coloring Sheet!
Click HERE for the Blank Merit Badge Coloring Sheet!
Artfully Yours,
Marcy
For another great COLORED PENCIL PROJECT check out my Pop Art-Inspired Sweet Emojiis!!
About the Artist –
Marcy is an art teacher and mother of two. Her website, Project Artwork at Home, provides fun and original art lessons and crafts you can do with your child at home. She believes messy hands = happy hearts and that helping your child be creative is easy when you tackle it one project at a time!
Angela
June 6, 2017 at 12:58 pmI absolutely love this idea! What a great way to help recognize our awesome dad’s for all they do! Thanks for sharing!
Barb Ingram
June 7, 2017 at 9:58 amMarcy, this is really fun! Love the idea of presenting the badges at a special awards dinner, too! Thanks for all the thought you put into this!
Kristen
June 15, 2018 at 9:39 pmLove this idea! I was hoping to print these out to use with my Sunday School class (and my own husband) but none of the links work. Can you help?
Thanks!
Happy Home Fairy
June 16, 2018 at 11:30 amHi Kristen! I am so sorry for the inconvenience! It is all fixed now!!! Have fun!
Kristen
June 16, 2018 at 12:35 pmThank you so much!!