The favorite part of our How to Train Your Dragon party was by far the Sheep Toss Game. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked for the tutorial on this one! I know it is long awaited, but here, finally is how the sheep were made. If you’d like the signage I used, you can find it in viking party pack, but I’m providing the sheep templates here on the site as free printables!
Materials:
- 1/8 yard Curly Fleece
- 1 sheet stiff felt
- Googly eyes
- Thread
- Hot glue
- Free downloadable sheep templates
Step One: Cutting the Sheep
First thing you’re going to have to do is print out the sheep template. There’s only three shapes on it–a football shaped piece, a vase looking piece (the feet), and the sheep’s head. I recommend printing these to a piece of cardstock so they’ll hold up to the tracing you’re going to do. Cut each one of your paper pieces out. For the fleece, turn it curly side down and trace the football shaped piece on with a marker type writing object. You’ll need four football shapes per sheep.
For the feet and head of the sheep, trace these to the felt. I used a white chalk pencil to trace on the black. Four feet and one head are needed per sheep. Unless you prefer multi-headed sheep, of course, and then I say let your creativity go wild. If you’ve got a Cricut, the pdf file should transfer just fine to design space for cutting out.
Oh, and make sure you save the scrap pieces. You’ll stuff the sheep with them later. It’s better than buying a whole bag of poly-fill!
Step 2: Sewing the Sheep
Now we’re going to turn all those pieces parts of cloth into one of these cute little guys. I named this one Baaaah-b. (Yes, that was a lame attempt at a sheep joke.)
We’re going to work with the fleecy bits first. Take two of the football shapes and pin them together, curly sides together. You’ll end up with two pinned together footballs when you’re done. Sew the shape together where you’ve pinned only on one side! I used a very narrow seam allowance when I sewed these.
Take the pins out, and once they’re opened up, you should have two circular pieces.
On one of the circles, pin your four feet to the edge of the fabric on the curly side. I centered mine over the seam. Once the sheep is sewn up and turned inside out, these little feet will dangle down. Pin your non-footed circle to your footed circle, lining up the sewn seams. Sew around the circle, leaving an inch or two open so you can stuff your sheep and turn it inside out. Any color thread works in your machine on this project; the fleece totally obscures any seams.
Turn the sheep inside out. You’ll end up with something that looks like this. This picture makes me giggle a little, but yes this is the sheep being stuffed with the scraps from our cuttings. If you don’t think it’s full enough, by all means use some poly-fill to make your sheep a bit plumper. When you’re done, you’ll have a comfortably round little sheep with no head. With a needle and thread, whipstitch your stuffing hole closed.
Step 3: It’s alive! Sheep face.
Not to be confused with duck face. This is probably the easiest part! Bust out your glue gun and glue on the googlie eyes. Put some glue on the back of the head and glue directly to the front of the sheep on the fleece.
You’ll want to make bunches of these for a good sheep toss game. I think there were nine or so in our bucket. And to make it even more How to Train Your Dragon-like, be sure to make yourself a black sheep and use a sharpie to draw targets on the sides of the white ones!
To finish setting up your sheep toss game, you’ll need a few baskets–I used laundry baskets as they were about the rights size for a 5-7 year old to be able to make it into. Mark each basket with a color in some way.
The rules were pretty simple. Each Viking was assigned a basket. All the baskets were labeled with a colored dragon picture. It was the Viking’s job to toss as many sheep in their own basket as they could, and they got double points for getting the black sheep in their own basket. We found the game worked best with just two playing at the same time.
Emily
Monday 30th of September 2024
Was this much material just for one sheep?
How to Train Your Dragon Party Ideas - Frog Prince Paperie
Monday 3rd of June 2019
[…] of the really fun How to Train your Dragon party games we played at the last party was a Sheep Toss. I actually sewed every single one of those sheep myself. Yes, I’m a little crazy like that […]
How to Train Your Dragon Birthday Party Games - Frog Prince Paperie
Wednesday 22nd of May 2019
[…] party planners, there’s a gem to incorporate to really wow your party guests! You can see the sheep toss party game tutorial here. The rules were pretty simple. Each Viking was assigned a basket. All the baskets were […]
Cathy
Thursday 23rd of July 2015
Beyond cute idea!! :-) We love both how to train your dragon movies! I wrote a post on life lessons from these movies! If you have a minute come on over and check it out! :-) Cathy
Melissa French, The More With Less Mom
Tuesday 21st of July 2015
Who doesn't love a good sheep toss? I love it! Thanks for posting. Hello from Busy Monday.