Little Dove Creations: birthday bash week: felt playhouse

little guy's birthday is this Saturday

birthday boy

birthday cards

On one side of the house he has a big window with a pretty window box where he can pick flowers, maybe to give to someone who loves him very much and spent hours making him a nice birthday present?

Edited with this picture taken on his big day. :)

On the backside of the felt playhouse, I made him a little orchard. Currently he has Red Delicious apples, Navel oranges, and some lemons.In the future I might make some other fruits for his trees. All of the fruit is attached with Velcro so he can pick it off. I also decided to make a secret entrance in the back, because every little boy needs an escape route.

Finally, he needs a place where he can sell the fruit he picks so I made a little market on the side with more Velcro that he can stick the fruit to.

I got a lot of inspiration from Jill's felt playhouse at Homemade By Jill (can you tell I love that blog?) and many other people out there. Are you inspired to make your own felt playhouse yet? I hope so. Here are a few words of advice if you decide to make one:

You know the old saying, measure twice, cut once? Well, I probably measured about 4 times before I cut anything. I also sketched a 1/8" scale of all the sides except the orchard. This really helped because I was able to follow the diagram instead of trying to guess where everything should go.

Like Jill suggests, sew everything on the side panels, then sew the sides to the top, then sew the sides together. I can't even imagine trying to sew something to the sides now that everything is assembled.

I made sure to triple or quadruple stitch anywhere that might get a lot of pulling by little boy hands.

I am very lucky that we happen to have a counter height table, it is going to give my little dove so much room to grow into his playhouse! I measured him next to the table so I would put the windows and the door at appropriate heights.

Rotary blade, rotary blade, rotary blade, did I mention use a rotary blade? I bought one right before I started this project and now I don't know how I ever went through life without one.

Take your time! Plan plenty of time for this project so you don't feel like you have to rush through it, that's how mistakes are made. Plus, don't you actually want to enjoy the process?