If you've never been, I highly recommend a visit to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. Tennis fans will love it, obviously, but even if you know nothing about tennis I guarantee that you will love it too. I learned so much about the sport. Tennis wasn't represented amongst the many Sports Crafts for Kids I've made over the years, so it was time to change that.
I first played tennis in high school PE. Or maybe middle school PE. Either way, I enjoyed it, relatively speaking. In college, one of my roommates was on the tennis team. After I bought a racket, a third roommate and I would play against her, 2 against 1, and she would beat us every time. Easily. A few years later, I took tennis lessons through the city for a few months. It was fun, but I didn't end up playing again for about 15 years when 8-year old Trevor was interested in learning. He and I played a couple dozen times until he was about 10 and I haven't played since. I still have my racket though; it has the same colors as today’s craft. Affiliate links below.
Tennis Racket Craft
Materials:
Steps:
Sketch a tennis racket onto a piece of chipboard. As you can see, I drew loose ovals until I found a shape I liked, then added the handle at the bottom. If you prefer, make a pattern on a piece of scratch paper or print out a picture and use that as a pattern.
Cut out the tennis racket. To make mine symmetrical, I cut one side, then used that scrap to cut the other side. That allowed me to fix any imperfections.
Trace the head of the tennis racket onto a piece of scratch paper, then paint the racket with your preferred color. While you are waiting for the paint to dry, plan out where you want the strings to go. I started with a line in the center, then approximately every 1/2" outward from there, giving me a total of 7 vertical strings.
When the paint is dry, wrap pieces of colored (or plain) masking tape along the handle to make the grip.
I had planned to poke holes in the chipboard and sew fishing line through them to make the strings. This failed. I had to use a needle with a fairly large eye in order to fit the fishing line, which threatened to tear the chipboard. I tried a couple of other ideas but eventually abandoned the ideas of holes altogether and switched to embroidery floss and glue. Do yourself a favor and go directly to the floss/glue.
After a bunch of experimentation, I decided this is the easiest method: Use the craft pick to poke holes into your scratch paper pattern. Clip the pattern to the racket and color in each hole to mark where the strings will go. Remove the scratch paper and put a dollop of glue in that spot. Add a piece of embroidery floss, slightly longer than needed. Let the glue dry completely.
Tape the racket to the table. Add dollops of glue along the bottom marks and stretch the floss into position. Tape the excess to the table to keep it stretched while the glue dries. Then snip off the extras.
Repeat the same process with the horizontal strings. I thought about weaving them, but decided I didn't want to test the strength of the glue. It probably would have held. But it looks fine with the strings not woven. If you prefer accuracy, go for it!
The finished racket!
Speaking of "racket"... as I was writing this post, I spelled it "racquet" about half the time. The more I thought about it, the less confident I was about which was correct. I looked it up. Based on what I learned, I changed my racquets to rackets. For purposes of SEO, I should probably write "tennis racquet craft" at least once in this post. There. Whether you're looking for a racket craft or a racquet craft, I hope my project inspired you to give it a try!
