“Dear Zoo” Flannelboard

From KizClub; direct link for the “Dear Zoo” flannelboard.

I know that this book has been around since I was a kid, but I had never seen it until I found the flannel template for it. It was a super cute template, so I inter-library loaned the book to see the story. I was immediately sold on making this one!

Since I’ve been making flannelboards for about a year now, I’ve been looking for ways to up my ante, for lack of a better term. So while making this flannel, I experimented with ribbon, sewing, and paint pens.

For the ribbon, I just cut for the length of the piece to make a box stripe and overlapped the ribbon onto the back, gluing it down. The ribbon kept popping up, unless I held the piece down for a couple of minutes — which was difficult to do on desk. So I wound up gluing a backing piece of felt over the ribbon, which will probably preserve the flannel for longer anyways.

(I also tried a different way of doing this — gluing the ribbon down on a base color, and then layering the felt over it. While I kept the piece I did this on — the giraffe house, you can see it in the second to last picture — I decided I much preferred the look of the ribbon directly on the felt.)

As for the paint pens, my normal painting technique (paper clip & tempera paint) did not go over well when I tried to write with it. I just didn’t have the control I wanted. So I found these paint pens at Jo-Ann Fabrics, and thought I’d give it a go.

Still got to poke the felt instead of dragging it along, and I found I needed to dot out the letters so that I kept them consistent as I worked. I also dabbed at a piece of paper between each dot to keep the paint going steadily.

The finished piece (with ribbon and lettering), compared to the book. (And yes, I have the pop-up edition!)

Next up, sewing!

I had to do the whiskers on the lion — it would have looked funny without them. So I tied some knots behind the felt, and pulled it through. Absolutely the most basic sewing ever.

(Although, I doubt it will take me long to try out some other sewing techniques…)

After pulling all six whiskers through (and thoroughly gluing them behind the felt), I just trimmed them so that they would be even.

Just some pictures of the final project below. Enjoy!