Yesterday while digging through her wardrobe for a bathing suit, Gracen discovered the many felt games I sort of hid in the back bottom corner behind her shoes. She came out of her bedroom with big eyes and one of the games in hand and said, ‘Mama, I have a question to tell you… Do you have a felt board here for me???’ I didn’t. It didn’t make sense to pack the board itself overseas, but knowing I could easily get my hands on a frame once in Kuwait, I did bring a big piece of felt and her collection of games. Luckily, I had already picked up our very favourite felt board frame from Ikea a few days earlier, so we were able to have one put together in no time at all.
Today as it poured rain outside, Miss G and I got out some crafting supplies and put together a quick and easy stacking rainbow for her felt board.
Truth be told, while I cut out the rainbow pieces, she did this… Created a “porh-ple porkee-pine” with our felt stack and some pins. Hey, whatever floats your boat, right?
Because you have to be fairly precise with this project, I opted to find a rainbow image online and print it off to use as a pattern, but you could draw your own too. I made sure to pick one that had 7 stripes so that we could include both indigo and violet, and gathered some coordinating felt pieces plus some pins and some very sharp scissors.
I chose to work from the bottom up, so I pinned the pattern down on the violet felt sheet and cut the entire rainbow out.
Before pinning the pattern onto the next felt sheet, I cut off the bottom stripe off of the paper in order to make the next crescent slightly smaller.
I continued these steps until all of the colours had been cut out.
At the end, I cut out a couple of freehand clouds to finish off the edges. Voila – a felt board rainbow game that involves fine motor skill development, size comparisons, colour recognition, and rainbow order.
To learn how to make your own easy felt board and to see our other felt board games, click here.
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This is an extremely simple felt board game that takes no more than 10 minutes to whip up, start to finish. All you have to do is cut out several egg shapes (you can always print one off or draw one on paper first to use as a pattern), then chop them up into puzzle-like pieces. The nice part is that you can make them as simple or as complicated as you like, depending on the age of your child(ren). And when complete, the set of Easter egg felt board puzzles makes a great sugar-free addition to an Easter basket.
To learn how to make you own {simple and inexpensive} felt board, click here.
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Today after her nap, Miss G and I enjoyed a little crafternoon. We set up shop in the warm sunshine pouring through our front window and she worked on decorating felt eggs while I worked creating this new spring felt board set.
This time around, I created paper patterns by drawing very simple flower shapes onto scrap paper. The ‘line drawing’ section of Google images is great if you’re in need of some inspiration, or if you simply want to print off some templates and skip the drawing part all together.
Next, I cut around my flower shapes and pinned them onto bright, colourful sheets of felt (I use the inexpensive stuff made of recycled plastic bottles for felt board sets and save the more costly wool stuff for my Littlest Lulu projects, but both work great).
Then I carefully cut out both my paper patterns and the felt flower pieces all at once. I used the same method to create several differently shaped leaves too.
Afterwards, I cut out several long, thin pieces of green felt to act as stems.
As well as several centres that can be mixed and matched on the flowers.
Here’s our finished spring flowers felt board set… Flowers that can mixed, matched, and combined into tons of different possibilities. Just for fun, I may add grass strips, soil clumps, terra cotta pots to the set later on. And clouds, sunshine, and raindrops would be fun additions too!
Here’s my little love’s finished project. A beautiful colourful felt egg to display in time for Easter.
To learn how to make your own easy felt board and to see our other felt board games, click here.
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Today, while enjoying some downtime together as a family, I put together a quick and easy sugar cookie felt board set for Miss G… A sugar cookie cutting and decorating set. All it really required was a few sheets of the cheap {recycled from plastic bottles} felt, a pair of sharp scissors, a plastic cookie cutter, and about 40 minutes of {interrupted} time. Because Valentine’s Day is coming up, I went with a heart-shaped cutter, but any shape would be fun.
To start off, I traced the cookie cutter onto the tan felt several times, placing them as I’d cut out cookies from rolled dough (making sure to leave a decent amount of space between each). The only tricky thing is that in order to keep your ‘rolled dough’ piece intact, you have to very carefully cut the shapes out without cutting through the borders.
Here’s what you should have when your shapes have all been cut out.
Then I quickly rounded the edges to make the rolled dough piece look a little bit more realistic.
Next, I cut out smaller hearts in different colours (and two sizes) to act as the frosting.
The last {and easiest} job was creating ‘candy sprinkles’ by chopping up thin strips of felt.
Miss was dying to get her hands on her new game, and began placing the cookies into the dough immediately.
Then it was straight to cutting them out using her cookie cutter.
Next up – the best part… Decorating!
Almost as much fun as the real thing… If only felt cookies tasted delicious. ☺
You can find our easy and inexpensive felt board tutorial here and some of our other felt board games here.
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One of Grae’s favourite quiet indoor activities is playing with her felt board. It’s a good thing, because I love making new felt board games for her just as much as she loves playing with them. This is a super simple “game” that takes no time and very little skill to make, and is perfect for munchkins who are interested in letters or ready to begin learning to spell their names.
But before I begin, a few questions I’ve been asked about felt boards recently…
Where can I buy a felt board?
You can buy them at almost any teaching supply store (and even some toy stores that carry educational games), but it is very, VERY simple to create one on your own using a large sheet of felt (purchased at a craft or fabric store), a frame with with glass removed, and some glue. Making your own also means that you get to choose your size, felt colour, and frame colour, plus it’s a really inexpensive project – win! Here is asimple tutorial on how I made Miss G’s.
Dumb question, but do the felt pieces just stick onto the felt board without glue or velcro or anything else?
Yes! The beauty of a felt board is that felt sticks to felt, making felt board games good for hours of interactive fun. No glue, tape, or velcro needed. ☺
What kind of felt do you use for your projects? Is the cheap stuff found at dollar stores okay?
For felt board games, the inexpensive stuff made of recycled bottles is perfect. It costs about 30 cents per sheet, comes in tons of different colours, and can be purchased from dollar stores and craft stores.
Do you cut out every shape freehand or do you have a website where you print out shapes to trace onto the felt for cutting?
To be honest, I cut out many of the shapes freehand just because for me, it’s easier than finding a template online, printing it off, and using it as a cutting guideline. That being said, if I’m creating something more complex, I sometimes draw on the backside of the felt (the slightly shinier side) with chalk (it’s easy to wipe off afterwards) before cutting. For letters, I always print them off using a word processing program first and use them as a guide (as I did for the name game below) because I find them trickier. If you’re not a super drawer/cutter, you can always use Google images, search for your desired shapes, print them off, and use them to make the cutting process easier.
Okay, so here’s how I made Grae’s new name game…
First off, I gathered the materials… Some felt, straight pins, scissors (smaller sharp ones work best for felt), and the letters of her name printed in 300 point Illuminate font. (See some of my other favourite fonts below.)
Next, I quickly cut out around the letters, getting rid of the extra paper.
With the letters prepared, I pinned them onto my felt pieces using a single pin per letter. (Pinning right on the letter as seen in the case of the ‘r’ and the ‘e’ makes life easier… do it that way instead of pinning in the centres of the letters.)
Next, using my small, sharp scissors, I cut the letters out, cutting through both the paper and the felt at once.
The last step involves taking the pins out and removing the paper.
Voila! Easy felt letters. Now it’s time to play.
Depending on the age and interest level of your child, you could add in the letters for their middle and last names, or cut out all of the letters of the alphabet, allowing them to experiment with making other words too.
To see more easy to make at home felt board activities, click here.
Another thing I’ve been asked about a lot lately is about the fonts I use regularly here on Mama.Papa.Bubba., so I’ve put together a little collection of some of my current favourites, including Illuminate, the one I used for this project. All of them are free and Mac-friendly. Simply click on the links below to download them.
Last year, Miss G had her own wall-hung Christmas tree to made of felt. I won’t go into the grossness that is the fact that our garage is home to mice (or the fact that her little tree wasn’t properly packed away), but needless to say, the tree is no longer.
Since Grae’s really been enjoying her felt board games lately, and since I have other plans for the little chunk of wall that held last year’s tree, I decided to make her a smaller Christmas tree felt board set this time around.
All it took was a big sheet of green felt (available in craft stores) cut free hand in the shape of a tree, a brown felt stump attached to the base of the tree with fabric glue (hot glue or craft glue would work just fine too), some ornaments cut from bright coloured felt, and a yellow star to top the tree.
And since Grae had a really nice long nap and I had finished all of the other pieces, I decided to cut out a couple of presents for her to place under the tree too.
Now she has a {new} little tree that can decorate again and again all by herself, regardless of the time of year.
See our other felt board ideas, as well as a tutorial on how to make your own easy felt board here.
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Here’s a new {Halloween-themed} felt board activity I whipped up for Miss G this afternoon while she napped. It was a super quick project and couldn’t have been more simple to put together.
All you need is some felt (I just use the cheap craft store stuff for felt board activities), a really good pair of scissors, and maybe some fabric glue if you want make your pumpkin stems green like I did.
I often cut out my shapes freehand, but since I wanted 3 distinctly different pumpkin shapes, today I quickly sketched them out first.
Next, I cut out my pumpkin shapes, as well as some green stems for the tops.
Using Aleene’s OK To Wash-It fabric glue, I attached the stems to the pumpkins and set them aside to dry. Of course, you could stitch them on or use regular craft glue for this job instead. Or, another thought…you could not attach them at all and let adding stems to the pumpkins be part of the designing process.
While the glue dried, I worked on cutting out some jack-o-lantern eyes, noses, and mouths. I did this freehand, making up the shapes as I went along. Folding the felt in half in order to make symmetrical noses and mouths / two eyes at once made the job a lot faster and easier.
When Grae woke up, she was super excited to find her new felt board jack-o-lanterns waiting for her and got to playing right away.
She designed and redesigned the jack-o-lanterns again and again, sometimes very cautiously and sometimes more abstractly. She even ended up using eyes as eyebrows and upside-down mouths as moustaches (two things I wouldn’t have thought of!)
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For an easy and inexpensive felt board DIY, click here.
After seeing how Lindsay from The Little Red Horse turned my felt board DIY into an awesome birthday gift (check it out here), I decided to *borrow* her idea and whip up something similar for one of Grae’s little friends whose party we attended this weekend. (Thank you, Lindsay!)
I liked the idea of a creating a colour matching game, but wanted to try something different than ice cream cones this time around… Something a little more October birthday-ish, so cupcakes it was!
All I did was cut out cupcake tops (with a candle attached for gluing purposes), cupcake liners and candles in coordinating colours, and little yellow flames.
Voila! An easy little felt board game that allows munchkins to practice colour matching by pairing up the tops and bottoms of the cupcakes.
Sadly, I didn’t take a photo of the finished product, but the felt board looked exactly like Gracen’s, said “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” across the top, had two of the felt cupcakes in the middle (because the little boy was turning two) and said “JACKSON” (the little boy’s name) across the bottom. We also included the rest of the alphabet, the other cupcakes, and a jack-o-lantern face designing game each in a little bag separately.
Gracen loves her felt board, so she was very proud to give one to her little friend come party time. ☺
When we were on vacation, all of the old-school toys Grandma Charlotte has saved from her boys’ childhood got me thinking about favourites from my own childhood. While it’s not really a toy, one thing I LOVED growing up was the felt boards teachers would use during carpet times in elementary school. You just knew that if you sat down to listen to a story and the teacher reached for her felt board and a bag of felt pieces, it was going to be a good one.
This then got me thinking about all of the cool things Miss G and I could do with a felt board of our own. From matching games, to sorting activities, to building funny faces, and learning about shapes and colours… The options are endless really.
Now, we probably could have bought a pre-made felt board and coordinating pieces, but what fun is that?! Especially when making one of your own is so easy. The best part is that this entire project can be done over the course of a nap time if your little one sleeps for at least an hour.
We picked up this square poster frame from IKEA, grabbed a package of felt from the craft store (you can also buy it on a roll from fabric stores), and gathered up a glue gun (I later changed my mind and used Tacky Glue but I think either would work), a pencil, and some scissors.
To get started, I took the cardboard backing out of the picture frame, lined it up with the corner edges of the felt piece, and traced the other two sides onto the felt in pencil.
Next, I cut the felt square out. (Make sure you’re using really sharp scissors here. Your sanity and straight line with thank you.)
Next, because I chose to use white felt, I took the paper insert that came inside the frame, flipped it over, and glued it onto the cardboard insert to create a white backing for my felt. (You can use your glue gun or Tacky Glue here, but you could just as easily use white glue or a glue stick too.) See the difference? Much better with a little help from the insert.
Next up, I carefully gave my felt piece a quick iron. You don’t have to do this, but I found it made it much easier to mount the felt onto the cardboard when the large creases had been removed. Just be sure to use a low heat and keep your iron moving if you do this step. Then, mount your felt onto the cardboard using thin glue strips in order to avoid ripples and bumps in the felt. Also because felt does have some give and can stretch over time, it’s a good idea to glue the middle as well as the edges (I did the edges and a giant ‘x’ across the centre). Once you’ve got your felt piece placed on the glue, smooth it down from the centre outwards to ensure a good stick.
When your glue has had a chance to dry, place your cardboard backing into the frame and secure it.
Voila! Felt board complete.
With Miss G still sleeping and a little time still on my hands, I decided it would be really fun to have a game of some sort ready to go for when she woke up. I had no idea what I would make, but it needed to be something quick and easy. Thank goodness for Pinterest! I searched “felt board ideas” and got all of these great results. Scrolling through, I was immediately drawn to an ice cream cone colour matching game that I knew would be quick to cut out and super engaging for my little lady who loves matching games and announcing the colours she sees around her.
I just cut out my first cone and ice cream scoop freehand and then used the pieces as a guide for my others, but upon visiting childcareland.com later, I saw that she has a printable template available also.
I cut my circles out using a coin as a guide and glued them onto the cones using a little dot of Tacky Glue. And that was it. After a few minutes drying time, the pieces were ready to be put to use.
I love this felt board set because it can be used when talking about colours, it can be used as a matching game, it can used to learn about rainbow order, and it can be used just for fun (think 8 scoop ice cream cones!)
Here’s the finished product.
Miss G was thrilled to wake up to this little surprise and matched the scoops to the cones again and again, naming the colours as she went along.
Can’t wait to make some other pieces for her soon.
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