{Thanksgiving Fun} Pilgrim Hats for Thanksgiving Games

I don't know about you guys, but Thanksgiving goes a lot smoother at our family get-togethers if we have some fun games planned for the kids. We made a larger version of our little pilgrim hat treat boxes to use in a few fun games to play while the turkey is in the oven. These pilgrim hats made from disposable plastic bowls are perfect for kids because they are sturdy enough to make it through a day of play.

Supplies

Disposable bowls (32 oz or even a little larger)
Black spray paint
Yellow sticky back foam sheet(s)
White grosgrain ribbon (somewhere around 7/8")
Scissors
Exacto Knife
Glue dots or double-sided tape

We didn't show a step-by-step tutorial this time, since it is basically the same process as the pilgrim hat treat boxes we made (you can find that tutorial here), with just a couple of differences. We used a larger size disposable bowl for the game hats, we think it's best to use the 32 oz disposable bowls (may say 4 cups or 1 quart). They may not be quite big enough for all kids to wear, but they work great for the purposes of our games. 

There are 19 grandkids in our family and we didn't want to hand-paint each one of the bigger bowls, so we went with the spray paint option. Since we weren't planning on putting any real food into the hats we went ahead and spray painted the inside of the hats with black spray paint. That made it a little easier to put the ribbon and buckle on the exterior of the hat without scratching or peeling any of the paint off, since the spray paint does not adhere to the plastic quite as well as the craft paint. We still had some scratching of the paint occur throughout the course of our games, but we figured we can do a quick touch-up if needed each year when we bring the hats back out.

The rest of the process is the same as for the little treat boxes. You just measure the ribbon to go around the bowl (we used a 7/8" grosgrain ribbon) and attach it with double-sided tape or adhesive dots. Next, cut out a buckle shape in your sticky back foam sheet (we used a regular yellow this time). The size of the buckle really depends on the size of your bowl, so you may want to cut out a buckle shape in paper first so you are certain what size you want to cut your foam. We typically like to cut the buckle into a square three times the size of the ribbon we are using, so that when we place the buckle over the ribbon, there is an equal amount of buckle on either side of the ribbon. Next, use an Exacto knife to cut out a square in the center of your foam buckle, in this case we cut out a 7/8" square. When you have the buckle cut out, peel off the back and stick the buckle on top of the ribbon. We like to place the sticky foam buckle so that the seam where the ribbon meets is hidden. 

And that's it! Pilgrim hats ready for Thanksgiving day games! Stayed tuned for game details!