A few weeks ago, a former teaching teammate of mine reached out to me asking for a flag for her classroom. I had previously made some flags for outside of the classrooms at my building, which is what made her think of me. I was so excited to get to make her a flag for her new position at an elementary school. She gave me the freedom to go with my gut and just asked that it be elementary school-themed.
I found a clip art picture on a Google image search that inspired me to make a chalkboard with some school-themed extras, including a pencil, books, and an apple.
I began by cutting out a piece of black felt to the size I wanted for the chalkboard. You can see that it was not entirely a perfect rectangle, but because I added a border, the edges were all covered.
I then cut out tan pieces of felt to create the wooden frame around the chalkboard. I used a quilting ruler and a rotary cutter to cut the pieces so they would all be straight. My cutting mat helped me cut all of the pieces to the same size as well.
I then used hot glue to attach the border pieces around the edges of the black felt. I was able to increase the size of the sign by gluing the edges out farther than the edge of the black. As I was gluing, I cut the pieces that overlapped so that they would form mitered corners like a frame.
Here is the finished chalkboard base. I repeated this process so that both sides of the sign looked the same. I then used hot glue to glue all of the outside edges of the frame together so that it was one solid piece.
To create the apple and books, I printed out several enlarged copies of the original clip art image that I found to use as templates. I cut a template out for each piece that I needed to make, pinned it to two pieces of the correct color felt, and cut them out. This made two pieces of each applique, so I was able to use the same pieces on each side of the flag.
For the stack of books, I did not want to have to cut out a bunch of pieces and carefully try to put them together, because I knew it wouldn’t look as nice as one large piece. Instead, I cut out the outline of two stacks of books, and used a ruler, fabric markers, and a permanent marker to color in the books and draw the lines on the corners of the pages.
For the second stack of books, I had to reverse the direction of the stack so that it would be mirrored for the back of the flag. This was a little tricky, but I found that putting the two pieces together and poking a pin through the corners allowed me to line up my edges correctly.
To create the name for the flag, I simply printed off large letters using Microsoft Word to spell out the teacher’s name. I cut two pieces out for each letter and carefully glued them onto the chalkboard. The font I used for this was actually called Chalkboard, so I thought it was fitting.
I created the pencil by cutting a long, skinny rectangle out of yellow felt. I added the other colors of felt in a pattern that I felt looked like a cute pencil. I then used my permanent marker to embellish the pencil with lines and markings. I also embellished the apple pieces with some outlining using my fabric markers.
After the letters were glued in place on each side, I carefully glued on the apple, the stack of books, and the pencil using hot glue. I then removed all of the left-over strings of hot glue from both sides.
To create the hanger for the sign, I cut two pieces of satin ribbon that featured a rainbow ruler design. I then created four small bows using the same ribbon. Before attaching, I used a lighter to melt the cut edges of the ribbon so it wouldn’t fray over time. I then used hot glue to attach the two flat pieces so they looped over the tops. I attached the bows at the bottom of each of the loops to cover it up and add some additional decoration.
Here is the finished flag! I am so happy with how it turned out, and the teacher that requested it said she loved it as well! It can easily be hung up using a dowel rod and can be placed so both sides are seen or so one side is featured.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you are inspired to create your own flag for a teacher in your life! If you do decide to make your own flag, please be sure to tag me on Facebook or Instagram using @onecraftatatime so I can see what you made!
Happy crafting!
~Candace 🙂