on the subject of felt boards

I’ve been hunting around for felt board inspiration. I was sure somebody out there had to be making or selling spectacular hand-crafted felt board shapes, but most of what I saw on Etsy and elsewhere was pretty cheesy, or was created for the purpose of retelling a bible story. These shapes from katiedid were sort of what I was after. The machine stitching adds such great texture and dimension to the pieces. I like to use tutorials and templates when I make stuff, at least as a starting point, and since she didn’t include any of that I just kept on searching. Then Pinterest lead me to this and this by Melissa Crowe. And the second board even had free downloadable templates – perfect. Once I got started it was hard to stop. I got a bit frantic wanting to finish the complete set, and I was working in a hurry and not giving much consideration to my color choices. Which I guess is how I ended up with yellow appliances.

After finishing most of the templates I got out some fabric scraps and made the window (there’s a deer and some tress out there) and the picture frame. Everything is machine stitched except for the cat faces and the rugs – I did those by hand with embroidery thread. Once Lila started playing, I realized we really need some felt people, or at least more animals, because she was mostly interested in the cats frolicking together on the bed, or cuddling on the rug, or napping on top of the fridge. I guess it’s not that much fun for a toddler to arrange furniture.

Here’s a view of the bedroom pieces:

And here’s everything together:

So it’s a work in progress – I got a big frame at Goodwill to make our board (I think this tutorial should work), but for now the pieces are displayed on a couch cushion. And yes, that’s kitty’s cell phone on the nightstand.