If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you may have watched a bit of my process when I was putting together this DIY felt farm play mat!  This will eventually be used for grammar work, but for now it’s just for pretend play.  I was inspired by Nicole of The Kavanaugh Report to make this myself instead of buying it somewhere, and I took a few parts directly from her designs while making up my own parts for the rest.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t sewed anything more than a busted seam in as long as I can remember, so I’m not exactly a sewing expert — someone on Instagram asked me what kind of needle I used and my response was… “There are different kinds of needles?”  So… if I can do it, you definitely can!

So I guess this project began with the Playmobil farm set we gave Nora for her birthday — I plan on adding these farm animals and tractor for Christmas!  I knew that I would eventually want to use it for the Montessori grammar farm work, so I decided to create the rest of the farm with felt.  The entire project (other than the farm) only cost me about $10 in felt from the craft store, and I actually have a lot left over that I plan on using for something else.  I already had embroidery thread, needles (no idea what kind!), and fabric scissors (ESSENTIAL!  Felt does not cut well with regular scissors.)  Honestly, I didn’t measure a thing, so I have no helpful instructions for you other than to just get creative!

I began by placing the farm in one corner so I could figure out where everything else would fit.  I knew I wanted 6 vegetable/fruit beds, 2 flower beds, and a pond.  Lila helped decide where everything would go on the large green mat (about 3ft square).

Lila also took it upon herself to make a pond template for me.  I was planning on using almost the entire piece of felt for the pond, but she drew one that was about half that size — so that’s what we used.

Once I knew the general footprint of our farm, it was time to get creative with the things we would be “growing.”  Again, I took some elements directly from The Kavanaugh Report’s farm, but added a few of our favorite veggies to eat.  I cut out basic shapes from felt and laid everything out before sewing anything together.

Then I sewed the individual veggies onto the darker brown felt rectangles before sewing each of those rectangles onto a lighter brown rectangle to make them look like raised beds — then each of those raised beds directly onto the larger green mat.  Here are some close ups in case you want to copy:

Once I’d finished the edible produce, it was time to work on the flower beds!  Again, I took some elements directly from The Kavanaugh Report while getting creative with a few of my own.  Here’s what they ended up looking like:

Then all that was left was that pond!  I added a few lily pads and some tall grass when I attached it to the larger green mat.

The girls have loved playing with our DIY felt farm play mat, and it’s so satisfying to see them having so much fun with something I created with my own hands!

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