We top our children with hats to protect them from the summer sun. With help from a bottle of dimensional fabric paint, though, a sunhat can do double duty. It can prevent skin from getting sunburned and help lost children get back where they belong.

For a parent, there’s nothing more terrifying than losing sight of your child in a crowd, even if it’s only for a second. It’s also scary for little ones to be separated from mom and dad. But it does happen.

To prepare our children, we teach them their phone number and address in case they get lost. However, in a panic, this information can be forgotten, and very young children can’t be expected to remember these details.

That’s where the bottle of dimensional fabric paint comes in. Whether the family is enjoying a day at Walt Disney World or at a more local attraction, there’s a good chance the kids will be wearing hats.

Before the adventure, use dimensional fabric paint (or a permanent marker/fabric marker) to clearly write the child’s name and any contact phone numbers under the peak of a ball cap or along the inside rim of a sunhat. If you are out of town, you can add a local contact number. Write the number on a scrap of fabric and pin it inside the hat (somewhere where it won’t bother the child).

Remind your children that should you get separated from each other, the information is inside the hat. They may be too panicked to remember mom’s cell phone number, but most children will remember that the numbers they need to get back to mom and dad are in the hat.

Here are a couple of fun ways to decorate sunhats your children will love to wear.

A few scraps of fabric and an iron-on initial make a baseball cap a real hit.

• Young naturalists will love wearing a sunhat covered with butterflies, lizards and other creatures.
• For this craft, first stuff the hat with balled-up sheets of newspaper. Next, position the critters on the hat. When you’ve come up with an arrangement you like, attach them to the hat with hot-melt glue.
• You’re not done yet. Since there aren’t many two-year-olds out there who can resist plucking off these glued-on creatures, you’ll want to get out a needle and a spool of invisible thread and make sure these butterflies don’t fly away.
• Use dimensional fabric paint, a fabric marker or a permanent marker to write the child’s name and contact phone numbers along the inside rim of the hat. As above, let the dimensional paint dry overnight. It will feel rubbery when dry.

Jennifer Roos is a local freelance writer and author of Simply Seasonal: Easy Crafts for Winter, Spring, Summer & Autumn, a new release from Trinity Enterprise Inc.