Exploring Emotions with DIY Felt Faces

Apr 4

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My son Lukas is learning about emotions at school. In his first grade, they do lots of activities every time they have a new learning unit. You might already have my weather shapes from DIY: Felt Weather Board with Free Pattern inspired by the previous learning unit dedicated to weather. To enhance Lukas’s learning in the emotions unit, I thought it would be fun to make Felt Faces. I designed a girl’s and a boy’s face with loose eyebrows, eyes, mouth, and tears. They are easy to make and fun to play with. The FREE DIY felt face emotions can be used in felt boards or as an activity on its own. My kids love to explore emotions with felt faces.

Looking for advice on how to make a felt board? Visit my article and learn how to make Easy DIY Felt Board.

felt faces emotions felt board set for kids, a girl face with silly face

This Felt Face Emotions activity is excellent for learning new vocabulary, exploring different emotions, encouraging imagination. The face can smile, be silly, cry, show anger, and much more. Kids can experiment with facial expressions to develop the ability to identify human emotions.

The DIY felt face set is perfect for home but can also be used by teachers in their classroom. I have sent mine to Lukas’s first-grade class to play and learn with.

Have fun creating the felt faces with Fun Cloth Crafts free pattern!

Basic Instructions for Felt Faces

The felt face measures approximately 25 cm (10 inches) and can be used in felt boards or as a tabletop activity. The free felt faces pattern comes with 17 loose pieces. Kids can change their eyes, eyebrows, mouth and add tears to make the felt face excited, happy, sad, mad, silly, surprised, and even more. The tear shape is a raindrop shape from my DIY Felt Weather Set.

This felt face quiet activity is suitable for children 3 years old and up.

TIP: You can store your felt board sets in a ziploc bag or other transparent pouch, as it makes it easier to look for the sets.

Felt Faces for Felt Board stored in Ziploc bag

How to Make Felt Board

You can use these felt faces as DIY Emotions for felt boards. You can grab your felt board if you have one. You can make one if you don’t have one; The Spruce Crafts explains how to make a felt board.

In summary, you cut cardboard in the desired size. Then, glue a piece of felt (slightly larger than your board) on the board. Finally, fold the extra felt over the edge and glue it to the back.

Another option is to make the felt board framed. I tried it with the IKEA FISKBO picture frame (size 30 cm x 40 cm). The frame comes with cardboard already. I stretched a bit larger white felt piece across the cardboard and placed it in the frame leaving the transparent plastic out. I was pleased with the result.

TIP: I learned that felt holds on flannel. You can use flannel as your background fabric for the felt boards.

Materials & Supplies for Felt Faces

Printed Felt Faces template - to download the file, subscribe to the FunClothCrafts newsletter. In the newsletter, you find a password to the subscriber's Free Downloads Vault

Felt sheet and scraps (find great felt at Benzie Design or find more buying options in the Types of Felt section of the How to Sew Felt blog post)
Scissors with pointy ends
Glue that works on felt (Elmer's crafts bond fabric glue or Beacon Fabri-Tac permanent adhesive)
Freezer paper (optional - check out my tutorial 6 Techniques on how to cut out felt to find your favorite felt cutting method)
Iron (optional for freezer paper - I have Rowenta travel iron)
Ikea Fiskbo frame (optional - if you would like to make a felt board with a frame)
Ziploc bag (optional - for storage of felt board sets)

How to Make Felt Faces

Print the Felt Faces template
Cut out the shapes from felt using your favorite technique for cutting out felt. To learn more, check my post on how to cut shapes from felt. I worked with freezer paper to make my cutting more precise.
Cut the felt face and nose in any skin color you like.
Cut the felt face hair in any color you like.
Cut the eyebrows in the same color as your felt face hair.
TIP: Wondering what felt to buy? Read about different types of felt in How to sew felt: tips for Sewing with felt.
Glue the hair and nose onto the felt face.
TIP: Use the template as guidance.
TIP: Visit the best glue for felt post if you want to learn which glue to use for the DIY felt faces.
Continue with gluing the pupils onto the eyes and tongue onto the mouth. For the eyes, I glue them in 2 different ways: the first one with the pupil in the middle and the second one with the pupil close to the edge. In the end, you have 2 pairs of eyes.
Give your kids the felt face and let them create emotions and silly faces to express their feelings.

Cut Felt Face and Hair

Glued Hair to Felt Face and Nose prepared to be glued

Boy’s and Girl’s Felt Face

How to Play with DIY Felt Faces

I started this felt faces craft idea as a way to explore Emotions to support my son’s first-grade learning. As I was creating the set, I realized other options of playing with the collection:

Learning feelings and emotions vocabulary.
Asking, “How do you feel today?”.
Making an emotions quiet book page in your busy book.

How Do You Feel Today?

This activity requires asking your children about their feelings today. You can ask questions to help your child. Here are some examples: Do you feel happy? Do you feel sad? Or are you mad? As they get more familiar with the words, they will be able to talk about the feelings themselves.

Happy Felt Face

Learning Emotions and Feelings

Playing with the felt faces and asking your children, “What emotion do you think it is?”, “How does the girl feel?” It is an excellent resource for playfully learning feelings vocabulary.

I hope using these colorful visual felt pieces can also support your child in his/her language development.

Kids can also experiment with facial expressions to develop the ability to identify human emotions. For my kids, it is fun to make the facial expressions themselves and then show them on the felt face.

Inspiration for the English emotions words to learn:

Happy, Mad, Sad, Excited, Scared, Worried, Afraid, Shy, Jealous, Loved or Love, Bored, Nervous, Frustrated, Angry, Upset, Calm, Thankful, Embarrassed, Lonely, Hopeful, Proud, Surprised, Tired, Sleepy, Sick, Silly, Furious, Irritated, Left Out

You can also listen to the feelings song on Youtube and replicate the emotions with felt faces.

Quiet Book Emotions Page FREE Template

The Felt Faces can perfectly be used in Quiet Books. I created an example of a Quiet Book Emotions Page. It is size 20 cm x 20 cm (7.9” x 7.9”). It is scaled to approximately 65% of the original size. I would suggest this Felt Emotions Faces Quiet Book Page with a free template for kids 4 years and up.

You could also adjust the template size by printing the free Felt Faces template on a different scale if your quiet book page is a different size.

For the Quiet Book page size 20 cm x 20 cm, it might be the best option to have the felt face on one page, and on the other page, you store all the loose parts.

For larger Quiet Book pages, you can have the felt face on one page and the loose parts around it.

Quiet Book Page Emotions with FREE Template

To Wrap Up

Let’s be creative with this DIY: felt faces. They provide so many options to learn with ease. They can be used in felt boards or as a tabletop activity. I believe the appropriate age group for this felt craft is 3-8 years. Initially, it was created for my 6 years old learning about emotions at school. These easy-to-do DIY emotions are excellent as an emotions learning activity and a Quiet Book emotions page.

Thank you for reading and crafting with me! What are your thoughts? Did you like the Felt Face tutorial? I would love to see your finished Felt Faces. So if you like to share it, please send me your pictures. I welcome any feedback, as it is important to make my products better. Don't hesitate to contact me with your suggestions.

Be sure to visit more on this website for free embroidery and sewing tutorials to help you out as you stitch my patterns.

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Let’s craft together!

XO, Anna

This pattern may be copied for noncommercial use only. You can use it to make as many Felt Faces as you want for yourself or as gifts, but please don’t make any for sale.

2021Felt board

Anna Nellar