CraftShare Week 8: Felt Is Fun Treasure Map

Okay, I know this week's topic is a pretty obvious craft item: FELT. But, there are loads of great uses for it, like a:

Card Table Playhouse

Doctor's Kit

Quiet Book

There are tons of other cool ways to use this simple fabric & this week we're going to show some of them.

Why Choose Felt?  
Well it's versatile, hardwearing, easy to work with and cheap.  It also comes in loads of colors - I've even seen print felt at my local Joann's (how about a little tie-dye or leopard spots for your next felt project??).

Now one thing about felt that may not be obvious to everyone (at least it wasn't to me not too long ago), is that besides the little 8.5"x11" sheets, it comes by the yard.  And a yard is usually 72" wide.  So it goes a long way and it more bang for your buck than the little sheets.  It also means you can do large scale projects easily, like felt playhouses & play mats and still have loads left for all kinds of other projects.  Perfect for a crafting cheap-o like myself.

Today's project is made from some of the felt remnants left from making my Shop Around Playhouse and it is easy and requires no major crafting skills!!  If you can use scissors and glue, you can make it.  It's a Felt Treasure Map!

You'll need:
Assorted colors of felt scraps & 1-2 large pieces for the map itself
Glue (the white craft/school kind)
Scissors
Optional - paper, die cuts

Here's how:

- I cut out a big 18"x18" rectangle of cream felt & then a 19"x19" of tan and glued them together for the map.

- I then used my Cuttlebug to cut out some of the sea & pirate shapes in paper and hand cut out the blue lines from felt.  If you don't have a cutter, you could either draw or print out the shapes on card stock & cut them out (or just from felt if you're feeling crafty enough).

- For the paper shapes I glued them to white felt (so their details would show up) and trimmed the felt into shape and allowed everything to dry.

I was a bit short on time, but I may embellish it a bit with more items later, maybe add a compass and cut the edges bit to "age" it, but it will work as-is.  Now my guys have a treasure map playmat that they can design & redesign as much as they want.  You could also glue them down in place if you want a permanent map.

I know many of you have made felt stuff - it's in every crafter's arsenal.  So tell me what you've made or what you think would be a cool felt project.  And if you've blogged about it or got pics of it, go ahead & add your creation to the CraftShare Flickr Pool.

Sharing this with my fave link parties too so check them out here!