Working with Felt – A Beginner’s Beginner Guide to Felt Board Activity Making

I say “Beginner’s Beginner Guide” because I still consider myself a beginner at simply working with felt.

It dawned on me that the first time I worked with felt (taking on the large task of a toddler Felt Christmas Tree), I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.  I’ve professed my complete lack of crafting skills in previous posts here, and this project proved no different.  I naively grabbed a used pair of scissors and began to “cut” the felt, or rather sawed at it relentlessly and got nowhere.  That was a horrid experience!  But, once I figured a few things out, I began to love felt.

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Last project with good scissor – felt pumpkin for Halloween

After the Christmas Tree project, I had someone make S a felt board and then began working on handmade toddler felt board activities.  If you have never worked with felt before, let me give you a few pointers I wish I had known prior to delving into my first felt project.

Alternatively, what you will not find here is advice on stitching or sewing felt.  I repeat, I’m not a crafter by nature!  Anyway, back to the tips I can share, and I hope I help you if you’re as inept as I proclaim to be.  (Random thought: Do they make a Working with Felt for Dummies book?)

Scissors should be sharp!  Don’t use scissors that you’ve used on paper, which dulls blades.  And, don’t be fooled into thinking you have to buy $20+ scissors.  I think I splurged on scissors that cost me a whopping $8 (I’m guessing) and those totally did the trick.  I even wrote in permanent marker “FABRIC” so that I knew never to use those scissors for anything but fabrics.  Here’s hoping hubby never finds those things for any of his various projects, either.

Patterns.  You can make simple patterns by finding simple coloring sheets of just about any shape or topic.  Cut your objects from the paper with scissors (not the fabric scissors I just spoke of, please).  Now, use a pin or hold the paper really well over the colored felt of choice and carefully cut around the paper.

Freehand cutting.  Freehand is great for more simple ideas, like this easy felt watermelon seed counting activity.  The watermelon seeds came out cute without over thinking them.

Perfection.  Okay, not really.  If you’re using felt activities for the kids, they don’t really care about how perfect it is.  I cared way too much about how perfect things were in the beginning and spent a great deal of time on finding patterns.  If you can let go of the idea of perfection, just have fun with it.

Glue.  Don’t even think about regular school glue… that’s rubbish.  I found Tacky Glue to be the best for my projects.

I’d still like someone to show me what a medium or heavy weight non-woven, nonfusible interfacing is!  What information would you offer to felt board activity beginners?