[Edited: Ultimately, I used pipe cleaners for the legs and puffy paint for the lettering. And I’ve changed the picture, but have left the text as it originally was.]
I am a huge GIANT fan of Mo Willems. I love every single one of his books, but mostly, I must pledge my undying love for the pigeon books! Obviously if you love a book that much, you eventually want to make a flannelboard out of it. (Templates do not exist. I think I used a coloring page as my guidelines.)
So, I had this great idea to make two pigeons — one calm and one melting-down — and then however many times the audience has an opportunity to say “no!” to this pigeon, to make a bubble with the word “NO!” on it. Then, I could pass out the bubbles and this flannel could become participatory.
Then, I hit a minor roadblock. I tried felt for the pigeon’s feet and I tried ribbon and neither looked right. I like the idea of pipe cleaners, but haven’t actually tried it.
And then, I absolutely do NOT want to individually letter all the word bubbles. I suppose I could just scrap the ones I made out of felt and print out bubbles, laminate, and use sticky back felt.
#Flannelfriday friends, any suggestions?
storytime katie 
@Sethers and I wanted to share what we do with our Pigeon craft. We had the exact same problem and this was our solution. http://twitpic.com/5jmtxw Sorry he doesn’t have a head, I didn’t have one put together, ha ha. Hopefully this might work for you. Just cut out the shape of his legs and actually draw them onto the felt. Hope this helps!
Oh and pipe cleaners would be cute too! Just not sure how well it would stick to the felt. Let me know how it goes!
wait, i’m still a little dizzy from the utter awesomeness of your pigeons! i will recover, then try to come up with something helpful… faint.
Thank you! I think that the pigeon looks more impressive than he is — he’s a very easy flannel piece to make!
I think the pipecleaners will work great because y ou can cut and shape them anyway you want. For the letters – do you have a dies cut machine that you could cut the letters out of felt and glue onto the bubbles?
Our die-cut letters would be too big. I have been thinking about remaking all of the bubbles though, so maybe I’ll just make them bigger the second time around!
Print the bubbles on milk filters. Head out to the farm supply store and pick up a box. They’re super cheap. You just need to cut them down to 8 1/2 x 11 and zip them through the printer.
Wondering what type of printer will take the milk filters…laser, inkjet or both?
I print mine on a laser printer all the time. I think an injet would also work just fine.
Ok, I know this post is almost two years old, but I just wanted to shout out to Katie for this flannel story. I made a set (well, two) this weekend. I used TShirt paint (the kind in those tubes with the very fine tip) to write NO on the thought bubbles. I also hand cut, and very carefully I might add, the legs and feet out of felt and it was fine.
My Mo Willems story time is on May 8th and 9th so look for a shout out on twitter! Thanks!
Glad to see he’s worked out for you! I should post an update someday; I used puffy paint and pipe cleaners for the legs!