Felt board and mini felt car maps....

We are going on vacation at the end of next month and I have been busy gathering and making activities to keep our curious toddler busy while we travel.  The best way to survive a road trip with a toddler is careful planning, lots of new activities/toys, and maybe some ear plugs...haha (flashback to Jon and Kate + 8).  Actually we don't really require ear plugs since we are only +1.

I'll post another post closer to vacation with the completed travel bag full of goodies (mostly clearance rack and target dollar section finds).  Today I'm posting the beginning of the felt goodies to be included in the travel bag.  This is just the beginning :)

First up the felt board...quite simply a picture frame with glass removed with felt stretched over some cardboard.  I did an 11x14 so it's small enough to use in the car but large enough to fit all the ABC's. 

 So far I have finished the letters (lower and upper case) and the numbers.  I did double on the lower case so we can use them to start basic spelling. 

Then I took a break from the felt board pieces to make these mini car maps.  I have made two so far but ran out of the green.  I am hoping to make four more so she can use them individually in the car or all pieced together on a floor.  I pulled up the photos from the maps done on Serving Pink Lemonade and followed her general design.  I would ask Ava what she wanted on her map and she would tell me and I would "attempt" to copy as best I could.  After everything was glued together I added some more detail with fabric markers.

The only other thing I did differently was to hand stitch the yellow lines on the road, apples on the tree, and faces on the animals using embroidery thread.  

After I do the four other mini maps I will attach velcro flaps to the backs so they can be attached together to use as a big map on the floor.  

For the felt board I plan to also make dress up people (basically felt version of paper dolls),  funny faces, shapes, tic tac toe, farm animals, and either zoo animals or an ocean scene.  

I'll post those when I get them done....

......more felt fun to come soon.