Homemade Christmas: Play Mat

To:  Henry

Made with Love

From:  William

This may have been one of the most fun projects I got to assist in this Christmas, probably because William never tires of creative projects and he was so focused and sure of his idea and design, all I had to do was provide the materials and final sewing.  Here is a photo of it in the works:

It started as a simple piece of white canvas.  William drew two scenes with pencil then went over them with a fine point Sharpie.  Watercolors were added on top.  This proved to be a challenge because the canvas was so so absorbent it bled, we used a hair dryer to help.  We also noticed shrinkage wherever the watercolors were applied (should have pre-shrunk the fabric).  It turned out okay because the entire surface was evenly covered in watercolors.

Below is the suburban scene.  You may notice the DIA, Toys R Us, McDonalds, Trader Joe's, a playground, the zoo, a statue, a huge parking lot, Michigan Stadium, Whole Foods and a house all surrounded by train tracks or roads.

Here are a few views of the "country" side.

You may notice two pouches pulled out from the binding, those are to hold engines and cars and can be flipped to the outside of the mat to avoid obstruction on the tracks and roads.

William also decorated a Michigan car and family passenger car for the engines to pull. I helped him with the sizing on Adobe and he finished them with Modge Podge and paint.

The entire mat folds up neatly with a handle and snap. 

A few things we had to think about along the way..... what if Henry got so busy playing he had an accident on the play mat?  The watercolors had to be sealed.  We used Modge Podge again because it is non-toxic.  The only disadvantage is it made the play mat a bit stiff.  In that case it was lucky I got the outer binding on first because I don't think it would have been easy to sew through the Modge Podge.

Henry sure enjoys playing on it and I even like seeing William's artwork draped across the floor.  Good job William - you know you could probably sell these on etsy, this is definitely something I would have liked to buy for Henry.