The First World War ended at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918, the time when the Allied forces (mostly just England, France, and America) agreed with Germany to officially end the conflict on the Western Front. While a few skirmishes continued on the Eastern Front and elsewhere around the world, the majority of the fighting ended on this day, four and a half years after the war started.
After the war was over, many of the countries that were involved wanted to honor the millions of soldiers who had sacrificed their well-being, bodies, and lives. These countries decided to make Armistice Day, November 11, a holiday devoted to remembering and thanking the men and women who serve and have served their countries in the military. The US now calls this holiday Veterans Day, and the British Commonwealth calls it Remembrance Day. The British observe this holiday by wearing red poppies, as poppies have come to represent both World War I and the soldiers who have died in battle.
Since I’m an obsessed-with-World-War-I Anglophile, I made some poppy lapel pins for my friends and I to wear for Remembrance/Veterans/Armistice Day. Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:
- red and green felt (you could probs use fabric instead; that would be an interesting and beautiful variation of this project)
- black sequins
- lapel pin clasp
- hot glue gun (if you want to be fancy, feel free to sew yours together instead of hot-gluing it; yours will be more amazing and less janky)
- Take the red felt, cut a circle about 2 to 3 inches across, and then cut little notches out to make it look flower-petal-y. Also cut out five or six separate petals.
- Cut a skinny leaf out of the green felt.
- Glue the petals onto the main red circle so that it looks basically like a real flower. Don’t be confused, though; it’s made of felt.
- Get out three or four of the millions of black sequins you now own and glue them flowerfully onto the center of the felt flower.
- Glue the lone green leaf to the back of the flower.
- Slather the pin clasp with hot glue, coat at least three of your fingers in molten glue at the same time, shout out “Gabbadubbit!”, and then attach the clasp to the back of the flower.
- Put your new poppy pin on your shirt and go do great things.