19 July 2010

Messy Monday #21 - Trains Week

 

For this week, I made a felt mat with the kids for trains and vehicles.  I've been looking for a carpet of some sort that can be pulled out to play vehicles and trains on and decided that making one from felt would be cheaper and smaller/easier to store - and better yet, it's custom!  We went up to the local fabric/craft store and bought felt by the yard - all this felt was about $10.


We planned out how we wanted the city/town to look and I started cutting and cutting and cutting.  

This is how to make a BIG circle out of a square.

 Fold your felt like cone/snowflake (in half and in half again until you have 8 sections).  Then draw a curve at the top with a white colored pencil.  And cut - if your scissors are dull, fold up tin foil and cut that first and it'll sharpen your scissors right up.


We kept it simple and basic. 

Roads - cut and piece together BEFORE you glue.



Trees.



Water.



Then we glued it all together with this Felt Glue - it works really well and dries quickly.





Here's the finished felt town.


Now it's time to play.  We set up the train track around the town and got out trains and animals for some creative play.  This is about 2 seconds into the play time - it was a pretty "busy" town in about 2 minutes.


I'm linking this up to some fun parties - check them out!

9 comments:

  1. This is definitely on my to-do list...now I just have to do it! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. what a great and fun idea this would make a great gift for any young man as well

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is really cute! Thanks for sharing!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very cool! Thanks for linking up to Mad Skills Monday!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love this! You make it look seriously easy and fun to make...esp. for a non-sewer like me. Thanks for the great tutorial!

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is a great idea! I love it! Thank you for sharing this with us at Anything Related!
    {Rebekah}

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a cute and fun idea. My son would have loved it when he was little!

    I’m having a new link party “Cheap Thrills Thursday” starting the 29th. It’s for creative ideas that cost under $20. I’d love for you to stop by and join in!

    Kat
    www.BlackKatsDesign.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nice and sewing not needed! I wonder how long it will hold up with my youngest. I found other mats at http://zenseeker.net/Kid/PlaySurfaces.htm and may incorporate some of those ideas with yours.

    ReplyDelete
  9. features this on my blog today!

    kimboscrafts.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

I love your comments! If you have a specific question, please feel free to email me (see contact tab).