Sylvia's Birthday Gift

I meant to make this for Sylvia for her Christmas gift, but I never found the time to make it. Since her birthday is the first week of January, I just bumped it to her birthday gift. I'd seen a version of this, commercially made, at a shop a couple of years ago and it stuck in my head and I knew I could make it better. It simmered on the back-burners of my mind for while, my mental pattern-maker tweaking and improving this and that, until I finally came up with this. No pattern, no measurements, all made in one night in 2 hours.

I used what fabric I had on hand. This was from a bolt of fabric my mom had that was in her house when it caught on fire, so there is discoloration on the fabric that will not wash out, probably from the smoke and soot. Ok for little personal projects and the kids didn't notice the stain. Knowing my kids, it'll get dirty on the outside, so I'm fine with it.

Open the top and bottom flaps...



...open the side flaps and ta-da!! A felt board with felt shapes to make whatever scene you wish to make!

I already see where I can make improvements-- I sewed two pockets on the bottom flap to hold extra felt pieces and the girls kind of struggle to get pieces out. Next time, I'll make it a folding flap that folds up and then when you flip it over to close, the pieces won't fall out. I know I'll make another one for someone else, and Evelyn and Gretchen are each asking for one of their own.


It's way better than that one I saw.. that one was just a felt-covered board and the felt shapes were in a zippy bag. This version is nice that they can save the picture, if they wanted, by closing the flaps and not worrying about losing the felt pieces. I also thought that I would add a handle to make it portable, but this is not something I want my kids to take along in the car, or else I'd find felt pieces here and there. I feel better about it being a home toy and I can keep an eye on it when they play with it and put it safely away out of reach of Peter's grasp.

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Andrew thinks I could sell some of these... Would anyone be interested in buying one, if I made extra to sell? Of course I would use new fabric and I'm not sure how much I'd sell it for, I need to research online to see if there is anything like this out there and what the average price is. Let me know if you'd be interested and if I get enough interest, I'll consider making a few extra.

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