Arab American Heritage Month seems like a great time to continue our quest to learn about all the different countries in the Arab League. We settled on Mauritania, which became a member in 1973.

 

Mauritania (Arabic: موريتانيا) is located in the Maghreb region of Africa.  It is boarded  by Morocco/Western Sahara to the north, Algeria in the northeast, Mali in the east/southeast, Senegal to the southwest and the Atlantic Ocean in the west.

 

The capital is Nouakchott, right on the Atlantic Ocean, as the majority of the country is covered by the sand of the Sahara Desert.

 

The flag of Mauritania is very unusual because it only contains the colors gold and green and not the common flag colors in all other world flags: red, white or blue.  It was adopted on April 1, 1959 and consists of a green background with a central upward pointed crescent moon and star.

 

The gold symbolizes the sands of the Sahara Desert and the green is for Islam, while some consider that green symbolizes a bright future and growth. The crescent and star are also symbols of Islam and seen on other flags such as Turkey, Libya and Tunisia.

 

For this project, we recycled a Styrofoam tray that came with our meat from the grocery store. If you follow our lead, please soak it for a little bit in a mixture of water with a dash of soap/beach. I just added a few drops in a bucket and soaked it for a few minutes.   You can also buy them new, so I included the link below.

Supplies

Styrofoam tray
Xacto
Pencil
Scissors
Glue
Fabric paint
Ribbon
Felt cut into 2.5 x 4 inch pieces
Fabric glue
Printout of 2.5 x 4 inch Mauritania flag

I found a black and white outline of the Mauritania flag and made it the same size as our pre-cut felt pieces. My daughter cut out the flag.

She then cut out the moon and star from the inside of the flag.

She laid out the flag on the Syrofoam and outlined the whole flag first, then the moon and star on a differnet part of the tray.

She used the Xacto to cut out the main flag shape and also the moon and star.

Next she used the flag print out as a guide and glued the cut out moon and star Styrofoam pieces to the Styrofoam flag piece.  This will need to set, so she put it aside for half an hour or so.

Now the fun painting starts! She just squirted the fabric paint directly onto the moon and star.

She positioned the stamp directly over the felt flag, since they were the same size, and pushed down gently to get the paint to transform.  Every time she did a new flag, she added more paint. ( If a child messes up, you can flip it over to use the new side and place the banner against a wall. If your flag is going in a window, wait for the paint to dry, flip your flags over and do the over sides so both can be enjoyed. )

She let the paint dry and came back to used fabric glue to add a flag to the ribbon.  Our ribbons was nice and wide so she could flip it over to give the flag to make a nice trim.

She added the rest of her flags to the ribbon, leaving a few inches in between them. Let the fabric glue dry overnight. I put our banner between two heavy art books to make sure the ribbon stayed folded over the flags while it set.

The best part is now we have a stamp to use on another project later. Or buy more meat and create a whole new stamp to use.

If  you enjoyed making the stamp and would like to try your hand at another, try our Moon & Star Stamp {Tutorial}.

If you enjoyed learning about the Arab world, be sure to visit A Crafty Arab on Pinterst.