Passover Afikoman Bag – Tori Avey

Brenda Ponnay, author of the Secret Agent Josephine blog, is a regular contributor to ToriAvey.com. Her craft blogs are kid and family friendly; each project will help children learn the deeper meaning of the Jewish holidays. Today’s craft: Afikoman Bag for Passover

A favorite part of the Passover seder for children is finding the afikoman (a large piece of a matzah that is hidden during the Seder). Children search for the afikoman and usually receive a prize for finding it. We thought it might be fun to include children in the making of an Afikoman Bag. This is a simple no-sew craft that children can decorate with sequins, buttons and puff paint.

To create this Afikoman bag you will need:

• 2 sheets of 9×12 felt (usually found at your local craft store)
• pinking shears or regular scissors
• a hot glue gun or any kind of crafting glue; just keep in mind that crafting glue takes longer to dry.
• buttons and sequins for decorating
• puff paint (typically shelved with the decorative painting supplies at your local craft store)

To create the fold-over envelop flap: fold over the top edges until they meet in the middle.

You can pin a pin at the fold or just use your eye to cut along the fold line like so:

Then take your second sheet of felt and line it up at the bottom of your fold-over flap. This will leave an excess of 4 inches at the bottom which you will need to trip off. You remaining envelope will be 8×9 inches big (not including the fold-over flap), the perfect size to fit a slice of matza!

Now it’s time to glue your pieces together to create an envelope! Glue a bead of hot glue along the sides and bottom (bottom not shown).

If you are using a hot glue gun, you will have to work quickly. Also, do not let children use the hot glue gun, and make sure the glue is completely cooled before you let them decorate.  If you are using other crafting glue, you have more time to glue and position your pieces, but you’ll need to let your envelope dry for an hour or two so that is will hold securely before you let children handle it.

Now it’s time to decorate!  Some sequins and decorative jewels come with a peel-off backing. If you don’t have that kind just use a small dab of puff paint to hold them.  Use your puff paint to create swirls and stars and even the word Afikoman.  Just make sure to let your puff paint dry overnight before you go hiding it somewhere where the paint might smear off and make a mess.

We also created another Afikoman bag using just two colors of felt, some pretty ribbon and shell buttons.

This bag was created the same way we made the blue one, we just opted not to use the puff paint and ribbon instead.

Let the fun begin!

To learn more about the Jewish holiday of Passover, click here.

For more Passover craft ideas, click here.