Felt boards?

[angelamariebee]

I want to make DD a felt board for her birthday but I want to make sure it will actually work and last. I've heard that acrylic felt doesn't stick as well, is this true? We're vegetarians, but we sort of lean vegan and I'm not sure I'm comfortable buying wool felt. Also I've read on here about flannel boards.. would that be a better option? Seems like that would require more work (sewing). Does the flannel stick to flannel or felt? I also don't know how much flannel costs (compared to felt), I've never looked, so that is also a concern of mine.

Sorry if these questions seem silly. I would just hate to put a lot of work into this for it not to work out, kwim?

And I plan on making most, if not all of her gifts this year so I may be back to ask more questions about different toys later. TIA!

[CawMama]

We have a synthetic felt board w/synthetic felt letters. They stay on ok, but not great.....but it's good enough to serve it's purpose. I'm not sure how wool would "perform".

[tbone_kneegrabber]

We made a felt "box" for the car. I wrapped a cereal box (maybe a cracker box I can't remember) in the cheapy felt from the craft store, glued it on, and dp cut out cool shapes from the same cheapy felt. Ds loves to pull the shapes out of the box and stick them on the outside.

You could look for flannel at the thrift store, old sheets and shirts and stuff, cheap "recycling" etc!

[angelamariebee]

Originally Posted by tbone_kneegrabber

We made a felt "box" for the car. I wrapped a cereal box (maybe a cracker box I can't remember) in the cheapy felt from the craft store, glued it on, and dp cut out cool shapes from the same cheapy felt. Ds loves to pull the shapes out of the box and stick them on the outside.

You could look for flannel at the thrift store, old sheets and shirts and stuff, cheap "recycling" etc!

Now why didn't I think of that? Great ideas, thanks!

[Biscuits & Gravy]

Originally Posted by tbone_kneegrabber

We made a felt "box" for the car. I wrapped a cereal box (maybe a cracker box I can't remember) in the cheapy felt from the craft store, glued it on, and dp cut out cool shapes from the same cheapy felt. Ds loves to pull the shapes out of the box and stick them on the outside.

You could look for flannel at the thrift store, old sheets and shirts and stuff, cheap "recycling" etc!

LOVE this idea! I'm looking for things to do in the car for DS.

[MissRubyandKen]

I've wanted to make a felt board since my older two were little. My little dd is 15 mos. and I just bought some felt to do this. Dp and I were discussing how to go about it, best way to make it and hang it up, and we decided to not make a board at all and hang a large piece of felt directly on the wall. The felt was 3$ a yard and 76" wide so I bought one yard of a nice blue for the background. I already had some cheap felt rectangles of different colors to cut shapes from. I can let you know how it goes and post pics if you want to see how it looks when we are done. I printed some templates from scrapbookscrapbook.com for the shapes. She's little so I wanted them big and basic. They seem to cling nice so far just playing with it like it is.

[Tanibani]

It's so easy and I found the instructions/ideas here on MDC.

I took one huge bulletin board, one huge (black) felt (not wool), cut it to fit the size of the bulletin board (from Staples).

Then I took a spray adhesive found in craft stores. Sprayed the board. Attached the felt. Wah - lah, huge felt board.

Do a search for my name and you might find the thread. Someone on MDC posted a cool pic of their board and that gave me the inspiration.

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t.../feltboard.jpg

So easy to do... I simply bought the supplies and did the same for my nephew on the East Coast.

I found another cheapo board at a yard sale $1 so I made another board.

Now... my next project is to put photos on cardboard, attach felt to the back and have the kids use that too. They do that in my daughter's preschool class. So cool!

This one looked too complicated to me, but here is another idea:
Martha Stewart's Felt board

[aprons_and_acorns]

In my experience, acrylic craft felt works just fine. I think flannel works better than felt for covering the board though. You don't have to sew it, you can just use duct tape or tacks or a staple gun on the back. We have a box with a flap-type cover that makes a nice travel flannel board for the car.

[MissRubyandKen]

We finally got around to finishing the board. We did end up using cardboard and spray adhesive on the front and fabric glue on the back. Dp was able to bring a box from a screen door home from work so it was big enough for what we wanted. Here are some pics of how it turned out. Dp wanted to secure it well so he used screws and washers to hang it on the wall all around. I think I will probably end up making a border of some type to glue on to hide the screws (eventually). The board is acrylic felt, most of pieces are felt made from recycled polyester. Everything sticks great.

pic 1

pic 2

pic 3

I did learn one lesson, don't make the pieces too thin. Notice the cat without a tail. I'm looking forward to making more pieces, especially some fruit and veggies. Dd has been making pieces too, and they look great! She made two trees, a bird, and a bunny.