Safe and creative playtime not only for a child.
Since my niece has grown enough to interact with the world, I wanted to gift her something handmade, from my heart, that she could play with for years to come and would be upgradable, crafts, and a good memory in latter years.
I have been seeing a lot of different playmats for children, either quilted or sewn from scraps, but for my idea of a more interactive play, i chose to use velcro and felt to easily customize our ideas.
Behind the scenes:
The whole project took some 40 odd hours over a couple of weekends and used up around 20 A4 sheets of colored felt, with the one large mat, and about 3 tubes of glue. I initially planned to sew everything together with an embroidery floss, but due to time constrains and large and complicated areas I chose to divide the work. Some small and often handled parts, as the flower and veggie beds, were sewn, while most of the large areas were glued to the mat.
I wanted to have a little bit of everything, so after dividing the mat into different parts, I slowly worked my way through the details in each: house with a flower garden, vegetable beds, fields and a pumpkin patch, orchard, pasture for farm animals, a small forest, and the pond.
In a sense, it is still a work in progress as there are still animals and little things to add. In the future it may also be a crafty afternoon with my niece together. Would recommend to any parent or an excited aunt or uncle!
