All Things Fabulous

Punch Board Tutorial

This is one of the best games I have ever made.  I have used the punch board in primary (put scripture quotes in some holes, songs in others and stories in others), for class parties, and for summer parties.  Really, this thing could be used for kids and adults for a million different ideas.  I made two and used them both every time, the tutorial is for one board so double it up if you want two.

You Will Need:

-1 piece corrugated poster board (you know, the kind with the foam core, its with regular poster board, I’ve also seen this done with plywood)

-15 paper lunch sacks

-Scissors

-Elmer’s Glue

-Gift Paper or Tissue Paper

-Tape

Let’s Do This:

1. Prepare the poster board.  I was able to get 5 holes across and 3 holes down for a total of 15 holes.  I did not grab a compass and protractor to accomplish this, I just found a bowl that was a good size and eyeballed it.  I traced the bowl on the board with a pencil for all of the circles and adjusted if one was too close or too far and, voila!  You're ready to cut.

I admit, cutting is the hardest and most time consuming part of this project.  You need your scissors to be good and sharp, and get to work.  It's going to be messy work.  Yes, the edges of the holes are going to be jaggedy, but its ok!  You can either go back and use a file to smooth them out or just leave them be.  I found that once the board is put together it wasn't noticeable.   

2. Now you've got holes, yay!  Time to make the "chambers" so you can put stuff in the holes.  I created this using paper lunch sacks.  A full lunch sack is too long to use and unnecessary, so I cut about 6 inches off of the top.  It's best to make sure to measure the same for every bag so you have a nice uniform project at the end.

Now we need to prepare the bags to be attached to the board.  Cut a 1 inch slit at the four corners of the bag so the end result looks like this:

See how the flaps are folded out?  Make a crease at to fold the flaps out, and place the bag mouth down over the top of your first hole.  My holes were slightly larger than the paper bag, no big deal.  I stretched the bag a little so the hole was completely covered.  I have repaired my boards many times and found the this part is best done using good old fashioned tape.  Tape each flap to the board.  Move onto the next hole and do the same.  If your taped flaps overlap, no big deal!  This is the back of the board, no one will see it.  :)

3.  Closing the holes is last and most fun.  Now pick your board up and take a look at the front...

Mine has a lot of color on the front because I have used this so many times, but you get the idea.  Small holes in the bags or gaps where you couldn't stretch the bag to are no big deal, you are ready to fill and close.  What are you going to put in there?  Like I said, I have actually used this as a teaching tool many times but today was a party so in go treats and small prizes.

Now we need to close them up.  Tissue paper is the best for this.  It is opaque so you can't see in and light weight so it's easy to break and easy to glue!  

Grab the same bowl or object you used to cut the holes, this is going to be our template for making the circles to glue on.  I fold my tissue paper into thirds so I'm cutting 3 circles at a time and lay the bowl on top.  I trace a circle around the bowl with a generous 1 inch boarder (that's for gluing).  Don't stress getting the circle perfect.  Just as long as you have an edge to glue down, it's not going to matter if it was a perfect circle.

Now cut and repeat until you have enough to cover all the holes.

This next part is fun, easy and quick.  Lay the board down flat on it's back and lay a line of Elmer's Glue all the way around the edge of the hole.

Lay your circle of tissue paper on top and smooth down until it is well adhered to the glue.

Move onto the next circle.  Don't stress if your circles overlap, just make sure the holes are getting covered.

Once you've done them all you are good to go.  Some ways that I have determined which holes to punch are to number them, or use certain colors of tissue to signify what's inside (red holes have candy, green holes have toys, or pink holes have a song to sing, blue holes have a scripture to read, ect). GET READY TO PARTY!

<3, Sharla