Felt Board Shapes - Ant Picnic

Good morning all!

Woohoo, it's time for some more felt shapes! This months set is.... Ant Picnic!

Master J has such a fascination for ants. He'll sit there watching them for ages, and follow them about the yard to see where they go. Super cute! I figured an Ant Picnic might be a fun play set and boy was I right!

This set includes some oversized foods, and of course, the ants! It's all really simple to make too, yay!

Never made felt board shapes before? It's sooooo easy! Here's how!

First, gather your supplies. You'll need some felt, some scissors, some glue (I use 450 quick dry), and if you like some paint! I use fabric puff paint, but really, most would work just fine.

1: Download and print the template. You can download the PDF file here.

2: Cut out the templates from the paper. Then, you can either use them to trace around with a pen onto the felt, or pin them to the felt. I prefer to trace, it's much easier. Chalk works great for darker colours!

3: Cut all the felt pieces out. You may want to cut more than one of each thing. We did extra ants, 2 apples (one green and one red) and used the same shape for cheese, a piece of pie, and a couple of cakes!

You'll also need to cut out some thin strips for the ants legs and glue them to the back of the ant. Trust me, its WAY easier to do that and glue them on, cutting around tiny legs, insane!

Glue the stem on the strawberry, and the rind behind the flesh of the watermelon.

4: Optional. If you want to add more detail to your pieces, this is where you get the paints out! I tend to mainly just outline mine, but you can go as crazy as you like here!

That's it, your done! See, super simple!

Felt Board Shapes - Sweet Treats

Good morning all!

I'm so excited about today's felt shapes! I have to admit, I have a bit of a sweet tooth, actually our entire family does. Thankfully, these sweet treats are sugar free, fat free, and won't leave a mess on your toddlers hands (or have them bouncing off the walls!)

The Sweet Treat felt set comprises of donuts, ice-cream, cupcakes and of course cake! Because no dessert set would be complete without some good old fashioned layer butter cake! Om nom nom.

Never made felt board shapes before? It's sooooo easy! Here's how!

First, gather your supplies. You'll need some felt, some scissors, and if you like some paint! I use fabric puff paint, but really, most would work just fine.

1: Download and print the template. You can download the PDF file here.

2: Cut out the templates from the paper. Then, you can either use them to trace around with a pen onto the felt, or pin them to the felt. I prefer to trace, it's much easier.

3: Cut all the felt pieces out. You may want to cut more than one of each thing. We made 5 candles, 3 donuts, 2 cakes, 4 different cake frosting "flavours" and a heap ice-cream scoops and cupcake pieces! Because mixing and matching is fun!

4: Optional. If you want to add more detail to your pieces, this is where you get the paints out!

For the ice creams, I outlines the scoops in a matching colour, and added some detail on the cone with diagonal stripes. Waffle cones would look great too! You could also add sprinkles with paint, or choc chips, as well. I didn't, because I cut some leftover felt up into tiny strips to use as sprinkles. Make extra scoops for stacking fun.

For the donuts, I only outlined the icing, and not the actual donut. Again, you could add sprinkles to these too, and a whole variety of colours!

Candles! Such fun little additions. I made 5 initially, but I want to go back soon and do some more. They are excellent for counting! I outlined both the flame and the candle, and added some lines to give it that swirling texture that birthday candles often have.

I didn't outline the cake pieces. Mostly because so many other decorations usually get placed on the top, that I thought leaving them plain would create more open ended options for play. We've had sprinkles, candles and cherries from this set, but we have also put numbers and letters on the top of the cake, and fruits from another felt set. Oodles of fun!

Cupcakes! I have the most fun with these ones, because there are oodles and oodles of designs you can put on the cases! Try spots, dots, lines, stripes, flowers and even stars! Don't forget to make a few little cherries/berries for the tops! After all, decorating cupcakes is always a lot of fun.

That's it lovelies! That is the Sweet Treats set all done! Wait for all the paint to dry overnight and it's finished.

Outer Space Felt Set

Good morning all!

Master J loves rocket ships! He loves counting down with me and yelling BLASTOFF! So an outer space set was absolutely needed. I had a blast creating this one, and he has oodles of fun playing with it. That's a win win in my books!

This set is super easy to make, and even easier to customise! Want a patterned rocket ship? Go for it! Want other coloured planets? Sure! You can put whatever patterns you like on them, to create all sorts of planets or moons!

Grab the template here and make your own! 

You will need:
Felt
Scissors
The templates for the outer space set
Puff paint (or regular paint and a brush)
Glue (I use 450 quick dry clear glue)

Step 1: Cut out the paper templates

Step 2: Use the templates to cut out your felt shapes. You can trace around them with a pen, or pin them to the felt and cut around them that way. I prefer to trace, then cut. I find it easier to manoeuvre the scissors in the smaller spaces without the paper in the way.

Step 3: Glue! Glue the find to the rocket ship, the centre of the sun to the outer piece, the rings to Saturn, and the cab of the ufo spaceship to the body. Wait for them to dry before moving on.


Step 4: Decorate! I use puff paint (from Kmart) to edge my felt shapes. I find it makes them POP and gives them more details. You don't need to do this of course, but I like the effect it has. It's also how I added the land masses to the planet, and lights to the spaceships.

Wait for it all to dry and then turn it over to your toddler! Happy days!

Felt Board Shapes - Cars

Good morning lovelies!!

The first in "new segments" for the blog this year is Felt Board templates!

Oh boy, does Master J just LOOOOOVE his felt board. It's so old and ratty looking, but he doesn't care, he loves that thing! I think though, I have equal amounts of fun planning and making little felt shapes for him to play with, and I figure, you guys might like them too!

Felt boards are cheap as chips to pick up, or you can make your own by simply gluing some felt to a piece of sturdy cardboard, or even in a photo frame (with no glass of course) or you could forego the board all together and just lay down a large piece of felt to use as a base for the pieces to stick to.

For our first felt set for the year, I thought we'd start with one of Master J's favs. Cars! These are super simple to make. In fact, it takes longer waiting for the fabric paint to dry than it does actually making the set! These make fun quiet time play toys, are excellent story prompts and also make fantastic gifts!

Here's how!

You will need:
Access to a printer
Some felt in various colours
Scissors
Puff Paint or Fabric Paint (I used both, but mostly a puff paint from Kmart)
Glue (I used good ol' 450 craft glue)
A Marker
Popcorn. Because mamma needs a mid project snack!

Let's get started

1: Grab the PDF file and print it. You can find the file HERE



2: Cut out the templates from the paper you just printed

3: Lay the template on the felt and either cut around it, or trace around it and then cut the pieces out.

4: Glue! Grab your glue and start putting your pieces together. Doors and windows onto cars, add the wheels too. Glue signs onto sign posts as well.

Eat some popcorn while you wait for the glue to dry enough to hold everything in place when you move it.

5: Paint! Get your puff paint or fabric paint and add white lines to the road (or yellow), stripes on the traffic cones, STOP to the stop sign, and lights on the traffic lights. You could add more detail to the cars if you like, but by this stage I was over squeezing paint out of tiny bottles.


Wait for it all to dry overnight and TADAA! A new set of felt cars for your little one!