Homemade: Flannel Board

By MamaQ

Flannel boards always remind me of Sunday School as a child. I have distinct memories of one of my Primary teachers telling us the story of Noah's Ark while letting us put little animal figures up on the board. When I was leading a storytime playgroup a few months back I remembered that flannel board and thought it would be fun to incorporate it. I looked them up online and found they could be a bit pricey (I like things to cost nothing, generally). So I did what any self-reliant girl would do. I made my own.

I tried to find some guidelines online, but most sites recommended using something like cardboard and I wanted something a bit more durable. I found some stretched canvas on sale at Michael's - two for $5. I picked up a couple of yards of cream-colored flannel. My first try came out just fine - I cut the fabric large enough for the board and stapled it on. Easy enough. But for my second one (intended as a gift), I wanted to create a little storage pocket on the back to keep those little felt figures organized. Here's how I did it.

Place board on felt and fold half the felt over the board and cut out around it, allowing for 1 inch seam allowance.

Cut a piece of cotton to whatever size you want your pocket to be (mine is about 1/4 of the flannel).

Press both the flannel and cotton to remove any wrinkles. Fold over 1 inch of cotton around each edge and press.

Top stitch one long side of the pocket (the top of the pocket), then pin in place to flannel.

Top stitch the other three sides of the cotton to the flannel to create a pocket.

Attach the flannel piece to the board using a staple gun (I didn't get a photo of this because I couldn't hold the staple gun and camera at the same time!).

Voila!