Last fall, my then four-year-old guy was all over castles, dungeons, and knights. I thought I’d better plan a knight’s birthday for his fifth birthday party. His knight birthday came complete with a rented castle. Lucky for me, our local museum looks just like a castle. After miraculously seeing a castle in the middle of an Indiana town, I walked in and asked about renting it out for a birthday. They had never had a birthday party inside the museum before ours! I always say, “It never hurts to ask.”. With a castle/old jail as our birthday place, I thought I’d better get some fitting crafts to accompany the theme. But, with the crazy life of 4 kids, I wanted something simple. This Dollar Tree Cake Pan Knight Shield filled that bill!
For this craft, you’ll need:
- foil cake pans 11×9
- white paper
- marker
- wooden dowels (12 in.)
- glue gun, and sticks
- knight themed stickers
*Because the guests would be quite young, I did a lot of prep work. I made the shields down to the cross-shaped with a marker, and they decorated it with stickers. Adjust to what your kids can handle without frustrating yourself and them.
- I started out with an 11×9 in. foil cake pan from Dollar Tree. They come in sets of 2, so they are only 50 cents each!
- I hot-glued wooden dowels on a diagonal. My dowels were 12 in. long, but 15 in. would also fit. I wouldn’t go less than 12 in.
- I just grabbed some plain old copy paper, but you could get some cardstock for a nice firm paper
- I folded it in half down the long side
- An easy way to describe cutting the shield symbol is by cutting out a large heart! Do you see how the right side is the same shape as a heart?
- Then, at the top or your heart, make a curved line with the middle having a little taller of point
- Open it up, and Voila’!
- Make a cross with a marker from point to point
- Flip the cake pan over to the bottom, and glue the paper shield symbol
- Let the kids decorate their shield with cool foam stickers! I found these at Michaels Craft Store.
- Because we had girls coming to the party, I also had some princess stickers on hand. I also used a purple marker to make the cross on the girl’s shields. Of course, not all girls are just into princesses. Mine love the pirate, dungeon, knight stuff, too!
Here are some supplies that you might need or even want for this craft:
(affiliate links)
[box] Tattoo King Multi-Colored S...Shop on Amazon Loew-Cornell 1021173 Woodsi...Shop on Amazon Pacon 101188 Array Card Sto...Shop on Amazon [/box]
Oh…if you’re looking for a castle cake! I made an easy, peasy candy fortress cake. Here’s the tutorial!
[box] [/box]
Thanks for stopping by!
~Melissa – KidFriendlyThingsToDo.com
Thanks so much for the idea! I needed an idea for my 60 summer camp kids, and I didn’t have the hand power to cut 60 out of cardboard! This is perfect! Still thinking about a different type of handle though….
Oh my goodness, that’s perfect! I’m so glad you can use the idea. Let us know if you come up with a better handle idea.