How to Make a Travel Flannel Board Book:

A flannel board is a great tool for grasping and holding a young child's attention for story time (and any learning occasion) and a wonderful toy for the child to play with and develop their imagination.

Materials for your flannel board book:

* Pieces of flannel or felt the size you wish your book to be (the bigger, the better).
* Thread to match the pages of the book and the pieces, if you choose to sew them
* Tacky Glue (or glue gun)
* Sewing Machine (you can also hand sew this)
* Sewing Pins

1. Start off by deciding the size you will make your book. The bigger the book the more room to play and let your child's imagination run wild. I'd personally suggest nothing under 8 inches x 17 inches. (Mine measures 22 inches X 10 inches which gives my son 11 inches per page to play with.

2. Cut your large piece of flannel or felt to size, and decide how many pages you would like to offer your child to play on. Keep in mind that one page will be designated for storage of the pieces.

3. Lay your felt or flannel flat on the floor, making sure to smooth out any and all wrinkles in the fabric. Place the pages on top of each other in the order you wish them to appear in the book.

4. Lay all of your pages in a neat pile on top of each other. Either fold the pages in half or measure to determine the center of the book. Place a mark with chalk or a sewing pin to designate the center of the book. Now, pin the pages together in the middle and stitch down the center for your binding.

5. Take a large piece of flannel or felt and cut a large house shape out. The shape should measure 8 inches wide. The tip should be no less than four inches above the top of the 'square'. Sew the squared sides down leaving the top peaked area loose.

6. Now, fold the top down and place a piece of self adhesive Velcro on the underside of the point. Sew or glue this on, if necessary. Now you have your little storage envelope for your pieces.

7. You are all finished with your flannel board book. Read on for information on making the pieces.

Materials for your story pieces:

* Various colors and scraps of Felt (if making story pieces out of felt)
* Fusible interfacing (enough to cover the back of all your story pieces - or if making pieces from interfacing only - enough to make all pieces)
* Photo copies (or drawings) of the pieces you'd like to make - a coloring book format with no shading or coloring is best if you are planning on making paper pieces.
* Scissors
* Permanent and fine lined markers (optional)
* Tracing paper (optional)
* Crayons or markers (optional)
* Tacky Glue
* Scrapbook cut-outs (optional)
* Cloth cut outs of children, animals whatever you'd like to make a piece and story out of.
* Magazine cut-outs (optional)
* Thread to match color of your felt pieces

Decide if you would like to make random pieces of animals, people, trees etc, or if you would like to make characters and items from a specific storybook.

Once you've made your decision, determine how complex and durable you would like your pieces to be.

Felt Pieces

Materials needed to make felt pieces:

* Various colors and scraps of Felt (if making story pieces out of felt)
* Fusible interfacing (enough to cover the back of all your story pieces - or if making pieces from interfacing only - enough to make all pieces)
* Paper copies (or drawings) of the pieces you'd like to make
* Scissors
* Pins to pin pieces if you are sewing them
* Tacky Glue if you are not sewing pieces
* Colored thread to match pieces

Felt pieces sewed with three dimensional appliqu�d pieces for hair, hands and other accents are nice and attractive, but offer little to no involvement for your children to make.

To make these pieces, cut a piece of felt in the shape of the piece you are making. (Use the primary color for this piece. - For a black horse this piece will be black. For a little boy or girl this piece will be flesh colored.)

Decide what accents you would like to add as a second layer. Perhaps for a horse you would add the hooves, mane and tail as a second layer - for the child you'd add clothes as the second layer.

Take a piece of tracing paper and trace the shape of these items you want to glue or sew on as your second layer and trace their shapes. Be sure you are accurate in your tracing - it needs to fit the outline piece you cut out. Now either glue or sew these pieces in place (If needed you can lay the photocopied version of the piece over the top for placement guidelines for the pieces).

Paper Pieces

* Materials needed to make paper pieces:

* Tracing paper (optional)
* Crayons or markers (optional)
* Tacky Glue
* Photocopy of the pieces you wish to make for the flannel board. If possible have them just be a plain coloring book style image without shading.
* Fusible interfacing (enough to cover the back of all your story pieces - or if making pieces from interfacing only - enough to make all pieces)
* Scissors

Paper pieces are a bit less durable, but offer a lot opportunity for creative input from your child.

If you choose to make paper pieces you will need your photo copies of the pieces you are making. You or your child can color the pieces with colored pencils, crayons or markers as desired. You may wish to use clear packing tape to coat the front of the pieces. This will make them a bit more durable and resistant to liquids and dirt.

Fabric cut-out pieces

Materials needed for Fabric, Scrapbook and Magazine cut-out pieces:

* Scissors
* Fusible Interfacing
* Fabric printed with a design or image you wish to use as a piece.
* Magazine cut outs - you cut from the magazine
* Scrapbook cut outs

Cut out the image or images on the fabric, scrapbook page/book or magazine you wish to use. Glue (or sew) these pieces to fusible interfacing. Make sure the smooth side of the interfacing is against the back of the felt piece. You want to have the little dotted (or the roughest) side on the outside (this is the side that helps the piece to stick to the board). Trim off any excess interfacing around edge of piece.

Fusible Interfacing Pieces

Materials needed for Fusible Interfacing Pieces:

* Scissors
* Fusible Interfacing
* Permanent Sharpie fine line and medium point markers in assorted colors

Fusible interfacing pieces are the no fuss alternative to the gluing and sewing that both the paper and felt pieces require.

To make these pieces all you need to do is to trace the image on your photocopy that you wish to make into a piece directly onto the fusible interfacing using a fine line sharpie pen. Make sure the dotted (or the roughest) side of the interfacing is the back of your piece. Once you have your imaged traced onto the interfacing in sharpie you can color as desired with the other sharpies (sharpies are best to assure ink does not transfer to child's skin during repeated play). When you have finished coloring your piece in simply trim your edges around the piece and you are all done!

Working With Fusible Interfacing:

Once you are done gluing or sewing your flannel board book pieces, glue or sew them to fusible interfacing. Make sure the smooth side of the interfacing is against the back of the felt piece. You want to have the little dotted (or the roughest) side on the outside (this is the side that helps the piece to stick to the board). Trim off any excess interfacing around edge of piece.

When working with fusible interfacing, I've discovered that this is best with a flannel board book vs. a felt made board book. For a felt book, simply leave the felt as is as it sticks best to itself rather than to the interfacing.

Using your new flannel board book and story pieces

Take your finished flannel board book out and lay it flat on your or your child's lap, or the floor. If in the car, your child can play quietly to pass the time on long road trips. If you are at home, sit down with your child and tell a story (if you are following a book story read that as you play) with the pieces. When you get to a character in the story that you made a piece for put that piece on the book - better yet, let your child put it where they choose. Continue to do so until story (or book is over)

For imaginative quiet time play for your child:

Let your child have the pieces and book and allow them to tell their own story with the pieces. They might verbally tell you the story or they might do it quietly. Either way rest assured your child is nurturing their imagination through playing with the pieces. You may also want to make up a story with your child based on a random piece your child hands you during play. This is often very silly and the children love it!

Hints, Tips and Ideas:

* You can make multiple colored pages in your book using different colors of felt or flannel for variety.

* You can make pieces that would allow your child to set up a scene, perhaps for a park you'd include a tree, some birds, squirrels, a bench or picnic table and a couple trees.

* If you decided you liked the idea of the scenes and decided to use it, you might also want to sew these down on the pages and make several 'themed' pages to your book. You could possibly color coordinate the pages to match your chosen themes.

* You can make a book per theme or just make a plain one for 'free' play.

* If the Velcro closure does not work for you, you can try a snap or button and elastic loop closure instead.

* When choosing the size of your book, please keep in mind the size your pieces will need to be. You generally would like to allow for at least three to five pieces to be placed on each two page spread.

* You may either make a nice design in felt pieces on the cover, or you can opt to use it as storage space for the pieces (either in addition to the inside covers or in lieu of them.) I used a sea theme (borrowed from The Creative Nursery by Linda Barker) for my son's cover and storage envelope.

* You can also sew two pages together and either leave a top or side opened to for a large pocket folder. You can optionally close it with a Velcro, snap or button closure, or you can also opt to leave the top opened for easy access.

* One more option for the storage folder is to have a messenger style folder with a large flap that folds over the top of the envelope. You could then Velcro, snap or just leave the flap loose over the envelope top. This is an especially good option for younger children that might not have the fine motor skills for snaps and buttons, but have worn out the Velcro closures. The large folded over flap would keep the pieces in place without any difficult closures, and ultimately would be easier on your child to utilize.

* You could also utilize a top zipper closure for your storage envelope.

* Take one of your child's favorite stories or books and make it into a flannel board. Trace and sew (or glue) pieces of the important characters and items in the story. I have plans to make the book Goodnight Moon into a flannel board for my son to play with.

* If you find you have more pieces than can fit in one storage envelope, feel free to make another one on another page or one of the covers.

* Keep in mind the thickness of your book in accordance to what can be hand sewn, or what your machine is capable of sewing.

However you choose to make your book and pieces, may your child enjoy their new travel flannel board book and pieces. The larger your piece supply is the more your child can play and learn. Consider making more pieces to add to what you have to play with later. May you have many happy and quiet car rides with the kids!