DIY No-Sew Felt Tacos for Imaginary Play

This post about no-sew felt tacos may contain affiliate links. This post is not sponsored or endorsed by Dragons Love Tacos, it’s authors, or it’s publishing house.

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Psssst… let me clue you in on a secret. Dragons. Love. TACOS. Seriously, if you want to hang out with a dragon, you should probably have some tacos for the party. Maybe even a BOATLOAD of tacos. It’s something that Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri explore in their book, Dragons Love Tacos, and then they explore the complete lack of tacos on earth in the sequel, appropriately titled Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel. When reading aloud to my kiddo, it helps his comprehension to have something to play with while we read. The kiddo and I have bought felt foods in the past, but I’ve found out just how easy it is to make DIY no-sew felt tacos at home (and, like the name implies, you totally don’t have to be a master crafter or great at sewing to make these).

How to Make No-Sew Felt Tortillas and Shells

To make tacos for play (or for feeding felt dragons), you’ll probably need some shells. Yellows make perfect corn shells, and white and tan pieces make delicious flour and whole wheat shells. Make them tortillas or pretend they’re crunchy taco shells by cutting out a simple circle. I used a bowl that was just about the same size as my piece of felt as a template for tracing my taco shells. Basic circle and you’re DONE with your shells. For a little variety, you can also cut some triangles out of felt to make tortilla chips.

How to Make DIY No-Sew Vegetables for Felt Tacos

I love some shredded lettuce on my actual tacos, and making it for felt tacos isn’t difficult either! Simply use a green marker or pencil to trace zig zag shapes on green felt, then cut it. Cut each long zig zag into several shorter zig zags, and you’ve got lettuce! If you can, use 2-3 shades of green for more color variety.

Avocados are also very easy to create if you’re an avo lover. I literally traced an egg to make the perfect shape, but an egg-ish shape will work if you don’t feel like having eggs with permanent marker lines from tracing. Cut a little half-circle out of the middle of each slice and you’ve got sliced avocado for your felt tacos, too.

Trace the mouth of a glass to make a circle for the next vegetable topping…. onions! Fold it in half (like a taco!) and cut smaller circles from within the big circle to create several onion pieces. To really add some depth and color, trace the edges of white felt with a purple permanent marker to give it the purple onion look. This adds some extra realism and detail to the food!

In addition to lettuce shreds, you can really pump up the veggie volume by cutting small squares from red felt (to make diced tomatoes) or longer wavy strips (to make peppers). Dark brown lumps make excellent black beans, especially if you use black marker to really show off the individual beans (without the cleanup of 14,000 individually cut itty-bitty beans).

Oh, and if you have leftover red felt, you can always make spicy salsa. Just don’t give it to the dragons… trust me.

How to make Felt Meat for DIY No-Sew Felt Tacos

To make simple felt chicken in minutes, just take a piece of felt that is chicken-ish in color, cut it into strips. Then slice the strips at an angle to create some parallelograms. Once you’ve sliced them, use pink and tan permanent markers to add some detail, and you’ve got chicken!

Shrimp is also pretty simple. Take pink felt, then draw “comma” shapes on the felt. Cut them out– they don’t have to be perfect, because no two shrimp really look alike when cooked. Trust me, it’s my kiddo’s favorite so we cook it often. Once you’ve done that, use coral and pink permanent markers to draw a spine line, and then some smaller lines for detail.

Seasoned ground beef can be similar in shape to the beans– a simple random blob will work really well for that. Sour cream is also simple to make in the same way, simple curvy shapes, a little smaller than the beef or bean shapes.

The Most Important Cheese Hack for Felt Tacos

I love having busy bags without too many extra-tiny pieces, so I can stash them in a car and let my son use them at church, a restaurant, or in the car quietly without losing a ton of felt. Shredded cheese is just one of those things that seems impossible for a situation like that, but there’s a very special hack that helps.

Cut a larger square or rectangle from a piece of bold yellow felt, then make slits, alternating sizes, to make a zig zaggy sort of cut. When you scrunch it up, it looks like a pile of shredded cheese, almost indistinguishable from individual bits, but pull it farther apart and you see the magic– one bigger interconnected piece of cheese that won’t make a huge mess when it comes to playtime.

Assemble the Tacos!

Once you’ve got the shapes cut… you’re ready to play, actually. No sewing. And no craziness. No extra steps. Cut them, add a few marker details, and play. You can pile on all of your favorite toppings and get creative with it… shrimp tacos, meatless nachos, whatever you want.

You can play with these a few ways, too. Not only can you make your own tacos with your child during playtime, but you can also get creative.

Cook the taco ingredients in play or real pans (not over real heat, though– just pretend!) before serving.
Play restaurant and take orders, then assemble the tacos as ordered.
Play a 20-questions game to figure out which toppings should be ON the taco, and which should be left off.
Make your own Chipotle-type restaurant with toppings and go down the line to serve up delicious felt tacos.
Make tacos for imaginary characters. Read books like Dragons Love Tacos and decide what should go on the tacos (hint: DON’T GIVE THEM SPICY SALSA!)
Sort the different foods into their respective food groups, or sort by color, or by type.
Count pieces. Get specific when ordering to say “I want 3 pieces of shrimp and 2 pieces of chicken” for fun listening skill development.

There are so many fun ways to play that you should totally get creative.

DIY No-Sew Felt Taco Supplies

You don’t need many supplies for DIY no-sew felt tacos. However, you may want to pick up more than just felt, so here were my must-haves.

Felt 6×6 inches, Multi-color Pack This is the exact pack that I used and contained all of the colors I needed for these tacos, plus some extra for future DIY felt food projects!
Permanent Marker Multipack 24 colors means you’ve got more than enough to add detail to these felt foods, plus plenty more marking power for future projects!
Dragons Love Tacos This is the book that started it all and made it clear that dragons love tacos. Pantsloads of tacos. BOATLOADS of Tacos. But no spicy salsa.
Dragons Love Tacos 2 This sassy sequel tackles what happens when the world runs out of tacos. Oh no!
Dragons Love Tacos 10-inch Plush because feeding felt tacos to stuffed dragons is way too muc fun
Dragons Love Tacos book and stuffed plush set in case you’d love a bite-sized book and a cute little plush, too!