Easy Felt Board Projects for Kids

What parent doesn't look for ways to keep young children occupied and having fun, particularly while traveling? It's easy to grab the little ones' attention, and keep them busy for hours, when you start with a cookie sheet or pizza pan, and some brightly colored felt.

The cookie sheet or pizza pan makes it easy to carry around the play set and makes the perfect setting for the felt scenes that kids can make. All you need to do is cut an assortment of shapes and images for the play set.

Purchase different colored felt pieces in a pack at any craft store. They offer individual sheets or packs that contain many different colors and patterns. You'll find zebra-striped felt, cheetah-spot felt, and many other designs that are fun for kids.

Use patterns from coloring books, old children's books, or from objects around the house. Cut out shapes of trees, animals, vehicles, clouds, rainbows, sun, moon, swing sets, children, buildings and more. Since the felt is so inexpensive, you can afford to cut out dozens upon dozens of shapes. Use colored magic markers to detail the images you cut. You can make the felt images as detailed or simplistic as you want.

Don't forget to make lots and lots of accessories for the felt images, like shoes, outfits, hats, purses and other items. You'll find lots of patterns while browsing through catalogs and magazines.

Start by gluing a piece of felt on the cookie sheet. You can make a complete background, with grass-colored felt, sky-colored felt or even scenes, like a gym or a classroom. Or, you can glue small pieces of sand paper around the perimeter of the cookie sheet, so that the felt backgrounds can become interchangeable. Make several different backgrounds that kids can change whenever they want.

Combine different pieces of felt so that the outfits and other accessories become more colorful and detailed. For instance, make a shirt and shorts set from one color, then use different colors to make suspenders for the outfit, or even colorful pockets.

Although felt sticks well to other pieces of felt they'll stick together even better if you glue a small piece of sandpaper, or rubberized shelf paper, to the back of each image. You could also line the backside of the images with a row or two of hot glue, and after it's dry, it'll prevent slippage as well.

Sit down with the kids one afternoon and let them help you cut many different images from felt. You can toss some magazines or coloring books, on the table, for kids to cut patterns from, and believe me, they'll find plenty. You can also get patterns from cereal boxes and other items in the kitchen. The boxes often have pictures of cartoon characters that kids will love to duplicate.

Other small craft items, like silly stick-on eyes, shoe laces, or even strands of beads, can add even more excitement to the felt board. Look around the house to see what all you have to contribute, then pay a visit to a nearby craft store. You'll find everything - for very little money - that you need to make the fun felt board play sets for your kids. They'll play with it often and they'll be happy for hours!