The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

With the long winters in Ann Arbor and the inevitable snow days, I’ve had plenty of time to do some kid crafts. This felt board has been a big hit with my son who loves to have me tell him over and over the well-loved The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and the story of The Three Little Pigs.

1.  We covered an old bulletin board with some batting to make it even and then stapled green felt for the ground and blue felt for the sky to the back of the board. I sewed the two colors together first so the horizon line would lay nice.

You could also cover a sturdy piece of cardboard or a light-weight piece of wood to make the board. Mine measured 20” h x 16” w.

2.  Then, we bought TWO paper-back books of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Since you will cut into the pictures on the back page, you will need two books to ensure that you can cut out all the main pictures.

3.  After cutting the pictures, we glued felt onto the backs of them. We could then have fun telling the story as it reads in the book and make up our own versions of the caterpillar’s adventures.

4.  After playing with the board, we put the pieces into a zip-loc bag and tacked them to the back of the board so they would not get lost.

It was easy to collect two books of each story, since in paperback they were fairly cheap at the bookstore and our story of The Three Little Pigs found at a second-hand book store.

We also made our own stories by drawing on white card stock then cutting them out and backing them with felt. In this way, we made The Clock Story that tells what we do at each time during the day, complete with four-year-old illustrations.

Of course, there are many options for stories and even for the felt combination. Other ideas we had were:

to make one story board with two different colors of blue for The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

blue for water on the whole board with a brown “island” in the center for pirate stories

or brown felt on the bottom for a floor with orange felt on top for our own family version (complete with photos of family members) of The Napping House by Audrey Wood.

Hopefully the snow days are behind us, but now I still have a  project to take out for all those rainy spring days.

I am always perusing the Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel catalog for design ideas.  I look at the pillows and think, I could make that for way less than the usual $75+ price tag.

So after noticing the tone-on-tone and textured pillows were drawing me in, I tackled this ruffled pillow design and I am loving it!

I made it up a couple in a variety of colors to spice up my family room, then decided it would make an excellent kit for all my crafty friends out there.

With this modern craft kit, all the materials are pre-cut (and the ruffle basted) and ready to start sewing as soon as you receive it.  We can install an invisible zipper ahead of time for you, if you prefer.  Red isn’t your style?  We have felt available in slate gray, cream (straw), relish green, and grassy meadows green too.  If there is another color that you like shoot us an email and we will put it togetehr for you.

This a great kit for making a handmade gift when you are short on time and it has a great “Wow, you made that?” punch.  Watch out though, they are addicting to make and soon you’ll be making them for everyone on your list, including yourself.