castle peeps summer camp: diy travel felt board

 Lizzy House has invited  me to be counselor for her virtual summer camp revolving around weekly activities featuring her latest amazing fabric: Castle Peeps. I could spend this entire post gushing about how much I adore Lizzy... what a brilliant, funny and loving friend she is... how her beautiful fine art is even more so in person... that she is the youngest textile designer around... yeah, see I couldn't  help myself.

But let's jump right into this latest tutorial: The Travel Felt Board! You can obviously make this with any fabric, but Castle Peeps' endearing characters and whimsical castles lend themselves perfectly to this craftivity. My five year old is so smitten that she announced: everything I ever make her should now be in Castle Peeps. Five is such a passionate age, you know.

  I'm going to give you the measurements used here, but really you can make up your own to suit your materials.

Need:

rectangle of cotton 14.5 x 25 inches
rectangle of blue felt 14.5 x 25 inches
rectangle of green felt 7.5 x 25 inches
extra felt for backing
fusible webbing (optional)
handles (tip: dark colors disguise wear and tear of grubby fingers) 6 x 9 inches
snip of elastic
button
needle
thread
2  pieces of cardboard- each being slightly smaller than the board folded in half.

Make:

1. Fold handle pieces in half to make crease. Open. Fold both ends inward to center crease. Fold lengthwise again. Top stitch down both sides close to the edge.

   2. Place green felt on top of blue felt. Pin handles facing inward as shown. Pin elastic in the same direction as handles and in the center of right handle.

3. Lay cotton right side down over the felt and handles. Pin in place.
4. Sew all the way around leaving the bottom open. Now stitch the bottom a tiny bit on each side... just an inch or so.

5. Turn right side out and have a helper slide in one piece of cardboard.

6. Sew straight down the center. Then add the second piece of cardboard. You might have to cut it and/or bend it a little to slip it in. Iron and pin the bottom together. Top stitch around the entire circumference. Sewing around cardboard is slightly tricky and might cause some wee wonkiness... but that might have just been me with my daughter asking "done, yet Mama" every few minutes.

7. Make felt  castles and peeps... maybe even some clouds. Lay fabric on top of felt and cut out shapes. Stitch around the edges or use fusible webbing sandwiched between the two layers... or do both!

Felt sticks to felt. The green grass doubles as storage pockets! We love that part. Cleaning up is part of the fun. Don't forget to add a little button to the opposite side of the elastic loop. Keeps it all tucked in tight!

Ready to go! This will be accompanying us on our next road trip...

Or maybe just out to the backyard!