Felt Quiet Play Mat

So if you've seen my Pinterest boards ever, you know that I love felt crafts and have a whole board devoted to them (see here).

Last fall when I started my blog I was also trying to come up with a cute, fun, homemade gift idea for a 2 y/o girl.  I saw this awesome quiet book at Nap Time Crafters.  When I was brainstorming on the phone with my mom we came up with an idea for a "dolly dress up" quiet book made with felt.  Well needless to say, this project did not pan out though I spent MANY MANY hours on it... it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.  Someday I will revisit it but in the meantime I was still searching for something handmade to do (and in a time crunch now).  I had a ton of felt which I had bought for the quiet book so I was looking for an easier felt idea and found this post for a felt play mat....

Source

Super cute and it looked pretty easy and useful for having along on outings you might need a toddler to play quietly.  So I set out on my own.

First I started stitching around a 8x11 piece of purple felt with white embroidery thread.

Then cut the parts that would be used to wrap up the mat and used Heat n Bond to secure them to the purple pieces and also Heat n Bond to attach velcro.  

At this point I made a variation from the original post and attached the white pieces on the wrong sides of the purple piece...(yep it was an accidental variation).  The way the original play mat was made- the pieces that wrapped it up also covered the ends and made it so the pieces wouldn't fall out.  Oops.... but I continued on with it anyway.

Then I made some patterns in Microsoft word for the fun stuff.

And I traced them out on my felt.  (I have since this project purchased one of those dissapearing ink markers so I don't have use permanent maker anymore...)

 Then I spent some time cutting everything out- and this is how it turned out...

I think it turned out pretty cute, though I have to admit it wasn't given to the person I intended it for... The original gift was intended for a playgroup 2 y/o birthday exchange but due to illness, funerals, and family birthday parties etc we haven't actually made it to any of our playgroup meetings to hand off our gift so, since I ended up with more time I came up with a different project that I liked even better for a gift.