A Homemade Dinosaur Playmat

My little guy (Barley) is turning 2 on Wednesday! We decided to keep his gift list short, and I wanted to make a few things that I had seen online recently. He now loves dinosaurs, cars, trains, and superheroes -- typical boy stuff! So I thought a few little playmats would be perfect to make. I started with a felt dinosaur playmat that is based on the one found here on the blog Serving Pink Lemonade. I love how it turned out!

I drew out the design on tracing paper, then traced each piece backwards onto fusible web and stuck that onto different colors of felt. Then I cut each shape out of the felt, arranged it on a large, background rectangle of felt, and ironed all the pieces down to adhere them. I purposefully only fused a large grey "boulder" piece around the edges so that there was a pocket left there as a little dino cave.

Here it is from the back. I used the cutest dinosaur fabric that I could find at Joann's, the only fabric store near me. I finished the edges with bias tape, then sewed it to the back of the front piece.

I also added the feature of a zipper on the back, so that all the dinosaurs could be stored away right in the playmat. Add a bag of little plastic dinos from the dollar store, and you have a great gift for any little guy!