Felt Board Book

So... I love being creative!!  There's just nothing like the chance to come up with an idea, be able to make it affordable especially when you get to do it yourself!!  Love it, love it, love being creative!  It's also good, when I can do the whole process fairly quickly because sometimes I lack patience.

Case in point: There's a place in our library called the PERC (Parental Education Resource Center... or something like that).  I was browsing around yesterday and I found that they have a HUGE collection of Bible, Book of Mormon, and Church history flannel board stories.  I thought: how awesome would this be for Family Home Evening?  Especially since I don't have to store it, I can just borrow from here once a week!  So, I grabbed one to check it out, and then realized that the only flannel boards left were very large, bulky, and I'd hurt my back that day.  With a great desire to see how it worked, I still checked one out.  As I was driving around, it occurred to me that this was ridiculous!  I decided to check out Pinterest (love it!) for do-it-yourself felt boards that I could make.  (Afterall, I had several 40%-50% coupons for different craft stores, I might as well take advantage of it.)

I explored, then dragged Madison off to Jo-Ann's to check out their felt collection.  Bought way too much (gauging fabric amounts is sooooo not my strong point), and changed my mind from making a felt board to making a felt book (that way I could easily transport it to church, or wherever) and when we got tired of it, I'd donate it to the PERC. Of course, there were a few supplies that I also had to purchase: glue gun, glue sticks, and the 8x10 canvas 3-pack (though if I were doing it again, I would simply use cardboard from one of Madsion's diaper boxes).  The total came out to $8.  (Which I could have reduced had I known how much felt to buy, used cardboard, and already owned a glue gun).

That night, I turned on a movie, warmed up the glue gun, and started guesstimating.  2 hours later, I finished. 

Here's the final project:

The excitement was slightly tainted when I pulled the Bible story out that I had borrowed and the pieces didn't 'stick' on the pages very well.  Then I realized that they were for flannel, not felt....  I think if I take a quick comb/brush to the pages and loosen the fibers, it will all stick better.

On Pinterest there are a ton of ideas for activities and such that you can do with felt and flannel boards.  Of course, you have to make the pieces... and store them.  So I'm grateful for the PERC, where they can store any of my awesome ideas and lots of people can enjoy them!  I'll keep this book for now so I will have one when I want it!

Process:
I cut out 3 pieces of felt that were about 1-1 1/2 inches bigger than the boards.
I hot glued three sides, leaving the fourth out for binding purposes.
I cut out 3 pieces that were the exact size of the boards (tracing each board was a good idea), except on the fourth side, which I left about an inch longer for binding purposes.
I hot glued these on the back of each page.
I then sewed the 3 boards together by sewing the long sides of felt together.
After that, I decided to make a little curl for the binding, so I left the very back piece of felt long, and chopped the others fairly short to the seam.  A long strip of hot glue along the seam, curled the back flannel forward over the short pieces and held until it cooled. 

Voila!