Easy Handmade Felt Pieces

     My kids received a felt board for Christmas last year from my mother along with a wonderful felt set about the story of creation. After Christmas I decided to buy some more pieces since my children enjoyed playing with them so much. I went to the teacher store that my mother said she purchased them from and I saw some really nice sets, but the not so nice thing was the price. its was $20 to $25 for a set of felt pieces. I just couldn't spend that kind of money and was determined to find another way. 

          I checked Pinterest and Google. Found one way that you could print them off of your printer or stitch pictures on, but nothing that worked for me and was cheap. I didn't want to waste ink on my printer! I might as well just bu the expensive sets in the store. 

         I had given up and just put it in the back of my head for later. Then I was at a garage sale (I seriously need an intervention for garage sales!) of a former teacher. I was excited about all the books she was selling and other education items and was buying them up. Then I noticed she had a bag of felt pieces made out of a material I had never seen and asked her about how she did it, and was I amazed! This is how you do it! This seriously is the easiest and cheapest way for colorful felt pieces!

~ Milk Filters ~

     The main item you need is the what you will be making your felt pieces out of which is Non Gauze Milk Filters. I purchased them at a store called Farm and Fleet. A store that specializes in farm and agriculture should have them. You can also purchase them on Amazon. The store offered 2 different sizes, 6 1/2" ($4.49) and 15" ($14.49). I decided to go with the 15" filter disks. Each size come with a 100 disks so it just depends what scale you plan on making your pieces. 

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~What You Need~

What you need to start out with:

• Milk Filters
• Black Marker or Permanent Marker - with a small tip is easier for detail work 
• Assorted Colors of Markers to fill in pieces
• Print outs or book that has images to trace (You can pick up a book similar to mine at a teacher resource store or online) I happened to get mine from a garage sale. 
• Scissors

~Tracing~

Tracing can be done by you or your child. Your children can even draw their own pictures if they want! 

1. Choose what pictures you want to trace. I decided to go with some summer pictures

2. Place the filter over the pictures. If you decided to use a book - do not worry about bleeding through.

3. Start tracing with your marker

4. Trace until your finished

~Coloring & Cutting~

Coloring and cutting can be done by you or your child! If they go out of the lines no big deal because it will get cut off. I used Crayola and off brand markers and it didn't make a difference in quality. 

1. Color all your pieces. Do be careful though because they will smudge until they are dry.

2. After you have finished coloring you can cut out all your pictures with normal scissors. Very easy to cut!

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~ Play Time ~

Your felt pieces are ready to go! Use them on any felt board. I think these actually stick better then normal felt pieces! Your children will have a ton of fun and you can make ones for certain themes your working on that week in your home school. The possibilities are endless! Enjoy