DIY Felt Board

For today's post I decided to share a project that I completed a few weeks ago. I have been getting a lot of great ideas from Pinterest lately but I am proud to say this is something I came up with all on my own! I'm sure it's been done before, but this is such a perfect addition to a home or a classroom it's worth revisiting.

We threw a "Meet the Baby" celebration a few weeks ago and one of the things I wanted to do before people came over was finally hang up the many pictures and frames we have had laying around since we moved and our daughter was born. Here's how it turned out (sorry for the picture quality, they were taken on my iPhone--I'm working on taking better pictures for blogging):

Did you spot the one that isn't quite right? I've been meaning to fix it. I won't even tell you about the huge hole I put in the wall and the pipe I hit while putting these up.

So anyway, I had a large 24"x36" frame left over from a project I never completed. I was cleaning up Afton's felt board pieces she had been playing with and I began to wish she had a large play surface to hang them up and play on. Then, the bells went off! I could make the frame into a felt board! I went to the fabric store and bought a yard of black felt. This ended up being more than I needed because apparently felt comes WAY wider than I am used to. That's fine, though, because I had a coupon and only paid $2.19 for all of it. I'll have left overs for other projects.

Next, Dustin cut a piece of cardboard the size of a picture that would fit in the frame. He actually used the backing of the frame to trace onto the cardboard. I cut the felt using the cardboard as a guide. I left an extra inch to overlap on each side. Then I wrapped the felt over the front of the cardboard. I used a glue stick on the cardboard to help keep the felt flat. I would've used some spray adhesive if I had it, but this has held up well so far. I used my regular old office stapler to staple the felt to the cardboard. Here's a tip--staple as close to the edge of the cardboard as you can, otherwise the staples will show once it is in the frame. Finally I put the felt into the frame (no glass needed) and hung it on the wall!

There are so many felt board projects I want to do for the kids! The teacher in me wants to get a calendar felt set to start talking about numbers and weather each day with Afton. I also want to cut pumpkin shapes and various eyes, nose and mouth pieces out of the black felt for some seasonal pumpkin decorating fun. So far, the only thing I have done is used cookie cutters to trace simple shapes onto red and white felt. I cut them out and used them to entertain Aiden:

By the way, Afton's favorite felt board activity is tearing all of the pieces off of the board and leaving them in a pile on the floor. Good times.