This is what I was doing last night when I should have been doing something productive like cleaning out the cupboards in the upstairs bathroom or filing important documents in the home office:
It’s a homemade felt board. This is what comes of all that browsing time I had at Wal-Mart and the Dollar Store while Michael and Jade were in Vancouver. I’ve been thinking for a while now that I’d like a felt board toy for Jade; she’s tried one before at a friend’s house and it’s such a practical travelling game. Plus I’m sure it can be used for many years. I remember cutting out paper dolls with my sister when I was a kid and how excited I was when we got a “kit” for a paper doll including a whole wardrobe. Fortunately, felt doesn’t tear like paper does.
I know that you can buy felt board kits with characters and backgrounds all pre-printed for you, but I’d heard they were expensive. (Admittedly, I didn’t actually research this.) So when I saw all the felt sheets on display at Wal-Mart and The Dollar Store at 30ยข apiece, I couldn’t resist. I bought a couple of cheap paint canvases ($2 each) for mounting the felt and I joined them together using white duct tape. I cleverly left a 2 or 3mm gap between the two boards so that there’d be enough “wiggle room” to fold the two boards together after they were joined. Unfortunately, there wasn’t quite enough wiggle room after I spray-glued the blue and green felt on, but the whole thing still folds flat enough to fit nicely into a bag.
Jade helped me to put the board together by smooshing down the duct tape. Then I cut out a few flowers while she watched. I made the bee with her, too (which was actually a failed first attempt to cut out a flower) and then made the sun and clouds before she started to get bored and it was time to have lunch. I spent a couple of happily distracted hours before bed last night making the rest of the shapes in the picture and I’ve got lots of ideas for more. I love how the faces on my little characters turned out; I haven’t played with googly eyes in years! I was initially going to use markers to draw the mouths but after discovering that the felt got all fuzzed up when I was putting stripes on the bee, I decided it was easier to use bits of felt.
I plan to spray glue more felt on the other side of these canvases for a night scene or ocean scene. Even if Jade doesn’t really appreciate this toy now, at less than $15, it’s a toy that’s already provided its money’s worth of entertainment.
