A playhouse made of Felt project

Please excuse me. I did not die in labor, I did not fall off the face of the earth. I just got busy, and my sewing blog well..... got NO attention. Sorry.

To bring it back to life I wanted to share my now 1 year old's Christmas present.

I learned about this fun idea through a friend who found it on several other blogs and made one of her own. I fell in love instantly. Here are few of them:

http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2009/10/felt-playhouse.html

http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com/2009/02/fort-table-cover.html

And then there is this etsy shop that has just the cutest playhouses ever, and if you don't sew, I would totally recommend buying one from her. Not that I've seen one personally, but because hers seem to be the best you can buy, and trust me. For the time it takes, it's worth every penny.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/missprettypretty?section_id=5577944

Now, if you do sew. The two blogs give excellent instructions on dimensions etc.  so I'm not going to go into that kind of detail. What I AM going to do, is give you my take on the project as well as some suggestions. Now that mine is finished, I will tell you what I would have done differently.

I loved this idea and just had to do it. However, I didn't know if my kids would like it. Sometimes they could care less and then I feel like I've wasted hours and hours for nothing. so I tried not to go overboard. Turns out, my one year old LOVES it as well as my two and half year old. The five year old is just too big and doesn't care much for it. Now I wish I had gone into more detail.

You might think that I could just go and add more to it, but you would be mostly wrong. Why? because of the #1 rule on this project: EMBELSIH FIRST, PUT TOGETHER LAST. Did you hear me? Make the absolute last thing you do be to put the thing together. It's already big enough as it is when it's in pieces. Once it's sewn together it's almost impossible to manuver in the tiny spaces of your sewing machine.  I forgot to sew the owl on and ended up just using some stitch witchery to basically glue it on because there was no way I was going to be able to sew it on.

So.... what did I do different? I decorated a little on the inside. I was going to do more. But I was running out of time, and was really wondering if my efforts were going to go un-rewarded.

 

I made a fireplace. and a little table with a vase to put some flowers in. What I planned on doing and ended up forgoing was 1. I was going to print a picture of our family on some transfer paper, transfer it to fabric, then make a felt frame around it to go above the fireplace. I may still do it and just use stitch witchery  to attach it. 2. I was also going to use the third unused interior wall for some games. The problem was that I was not really feeling it. I could just imagine all the game pieces all over my house and of course the child it was intended for is too small to understand any games and the child who could understand the games is too big to want to go in the playhouse. SO.... I scrapped that idea. Maybe a cute sofa or chair on that wall. If I could do it over again.
3. I also wanted to make a pouch under the mailbox that I completely forgot about to hold all the loose pieces.

Now for the outside:

That etsy shop that I mentioned before has more ideas than I could ever come up with on my own but since my child is pretty young I just went with a basic house theme. I just love the camping theme where the door is a tent, and the under water one, and the bake shop. OH! They are all just adorable!

I just took ideas from all of these playhouses and made it my own. I think my kids favorite part is the mail box.

One thing. If I could do it again, and maybe I can repair. I would totally reinforce the mail box hole. They have stretched it out BIG TIME.

You see. Felt is not woven so, if you pull or push on it hard enough, it will rip or at least warp eventually. So I would recommend hiding a good strong interfacing or woven material around the hole of your mailbox.  Same goes with the door. I just made my door one layer and It should have been two layers or maybe one layer made from a woven cotton or something.

Another thing I would change is the location of my door. I put it too close to the corner and so that corner of the playhouse just sticks out funny.  I did put a tie in the corner so I could tie it to the table's leg, but it still pokes out. My kids could care less, but it bugs me.

I made some mail with a double layer of white felt. Before sewing the layers together I used the ABC feature on my sewing machine and did the address. If you had a real embroidery machine you could go to town.

The apples were easy and cute, but they just don't stay on very well. One good shake of the table and they all come tumbling down.

If you aren't very fluid at changing the thread on your sewing machine, you will be after this project. I changed my thread colors a million times. I recommend finding some invisible thread for your bobbin. One less thing to worry about. Although I wouldn't recommend it for the top thread. It tends to stretch a little, and breaks often. It can end up warping your project rather than laying nice and flat. And you will go crazy with re-threading a machine with thread you can barely see.

This project is a creative persons dream. Felt is super easy to create with. It doesn't fray, It's just like playing with constructions paper only instead of glue you sew. I only wish that I was creative as the people who came up with the idea.

A harvest-able garden

So, there you have it. Here are a list of my recomendations in short:

1. embelish first, construct last
2. Measure your table very accurately and add 1/2 inch to each side when cutting out your base color. Felt tends to stretch a little so don't add too much for a seam allowance or you will have a saggy playhouse.
3. If you are going to decorate the insides, do that first. Then decorate the outside. It gets a little tricky trying to not ruin the inside decorations with the outside stitching. But don't be discouraged. Find some invisible nylon thread at your local fabric store and use it on the bobbin thread. It will save your sanity. You won't notice it unless your look really close. 
4. Reinforce openings with a fabric that doesn't stretch out. Or a strong craft interfacing. It will save the shape of your openings.
5. Don't place your door too close to the corner.
6. When sewing up the sides place two 6" ribbons in the seam facing towards the inside. You can tie down the corners if you prefer.
7. I used real screen for my windows.  You can leave them open or use any kind of netting. I liked the screen because it's durable, totally sewable (as long as it's not the metal kind) and still see through. You can also find vinyl but I didn't want to go that route because I wanted the playhouse to be able to breath better. Maybe not get too hot. I had some extra screen already but it's easy to find at any hardware store in a variety of colors.
8. If you just can't seem to sew a certain part, try stitch witchery it sticks to felt wonderfully, just be careful because if your felt is not wool (wool felt is more expensive), it will melt if your iron is too hot.
9. Be creative! and Have fun!
10. Keep your eyes open for deals on Felt. I bought mine at the after Thanksgiving Day sale at JoAnns. Over 50% off. Made this a much less expensive project than it would have been. And I bought way too much. I could probably make a whole other house.

All in all, I think I spent around $17 on fabric. And had a TON leftover. Hours and hours. This is not a quick project. Probably a week of 2-3 hour nights. Of course if I were to do it again it would go faster. And if I were to turn off the T.V. It might save a little time (or a lot), but I like to watch T.V. when I sew.  :) It makes me feel less like a sweat shop worker and more like I'm killing two birds with one stone. Or something like that.