Make an Easy Toy Car Play Mat with Felt

Little boys love their toy cars! And what better way to play with the cars than on a large play mat complete with roads, parking lots, houses and more? You can make an easy toy car play mat with felt fabric and simple stitches or even glue.

Materials Needed

1. 1 yard piece of green felt fabric

2. Enough black felt fabric to make desired roads

3. Pieces of other felt

4. Glue or stout thread and needle

Constructing the Play Mat

The first thing you should do when constructing the toy car play mat is lay out the large piece of green felt. This is your backdrop for your pretend town. Of course, if you want to make a snowy town, use white felt, or if you want to make a desert town, you can use tan felt for the sand.

The next step is to decide where to place the roads in your town. Make it interesting with curves, four-way intersections, merges and more. You can even plan a railroad crossing if your child likes to play with toy trains as well. Do not make too many roads or your play mat will look too crowded and busy. You can even leave space for parking lots or parking spaces on the street itself.

After you have planned the route, cut out the black felt to form the roads. The roads should be approximately two inches wide to accommodate two toy cars. You may then glue or stitch the roads onto the green felt piece. It is fun to stitch a white dotted line down the center of the road as well. If you have included a train track that can be made with a bit more effort by cutting out rails and crossties from brown or grey felt.

Once you have the road in place on the felt backdrop, it is fun to embellish your town by cutting out and making buildings, houses, gardens, a farm, or any other scenery you may like. These can be glued or stitched onto the green felt in the places between the roads.

Some great ideas for your toy car play mat include a school, a church, the town hall where toy police cars can park, a firehouse, a grocery store, and perhaps a train station if you have included train tracks.

Instead of stitching or gluing the houses and buildings directly onto the play mat, you might also want to build them out of blocks of Styrofoam covered by felt. Your child can then set up the buildings a different way each time he or she plays with the toy car play mat.

You can make an easy toy car play mat that will be enjoyed by your children for a long time. With these simple construction directions, your child will even be able to help construct it. This play mat will help your child play pretend games of life in the city, town, on the farm, or in whatever other set you create.