My {DIY} Car Play Mat + cute car mat links

I think I may have finally convinced my husband that I NEED a Silhouette.   Here is my big fat sewing project for my boys- which might be a more appropriate title for this post.  Drum roll please...

This was seriously a huge undertaking and a labor of love. I had to recruit my husband and my mother-in-law to help me cut out the letters a few days before Christmas. And then I was up until 3:30 A.M. on Christmas Eve working on it. Since I originally started this TWO years ago, I decided it was time to just get it done! I would estimate I spent around 30-40 hours on it, possibly more.
You can see when and where I started on this thing HERE and a shower curtain version I made years ago here.

I orginally intended for this to be much larger, but it ended up being about 60 inches by 50 inches. I made 4 panels, and pieced them together with my road, which is 5 inches wide, finished. I used felt for the panels and flannel for the roads. If I were to do it again, I would use the same fabric for roads and panels but I would probably NOT use felt. Felt is not really washable, so I think I would use a canvas or denim fabric,  something washable. Flannel tends to stretch slightly so that is why I would use the same fabric for both the panels and the flannel. Since I already had a lot of it done on felt and flannel, I decided just to keep it the same. It was a learning experience!

I cut out all of the buildings, mostly designing them myself using basic shapes and also looked at some photos when I wanted something more than just a square or rectangle. (Many thanks to the wonderful people who share their great photos- which gave me lots of inspiration.)  I also used Wonder Under on just about everything to iron it to the main fabrics, and then I stitched around the buildings after that. To cut out the letters, I printed them off from the computer, then traced them onto Freezer Paper, and then ironed that onto the felt. From here, I cut them out, and then cut them out of Wonder Under. Yep, that is how  I do it when I don't own a fancy cutting machine. The freezer paper peels right off the felt when you are done cutting and you don't have any marks on your fabric/felt.

 I backed this with the same car fabric  that I used over the gas station. I also added a piece of white flannel between the mat and the backing, which acts like a thin batting. I stitched in the ditch around all the roads, after safety pinning the thing together, trying to avoid any wrinkles or bumps in the fabric. Next time, I would use spray adhesive, as in the kind for basting quilts...but I was tired so we just pinned it.   I then made some binding and quickly machine stitched it on--so it is far from perfect. When you are up on Christmas Eve sewing in the middle of the night, you just want to finish!

Since my boys spend a large amount of time on the floor pretending with their cars, I knew they would love it. And I think I was right. I love seeing my children so happy about something I created for them. I love seeing them happy, period.

Here are some fun links to some super cute car mats out in blog land. Some of these ladies used glue guns to make theirs. Since I am the queen of glue gun burns, I opted to sew mine. But these are all super cute-so take a peek at some amazing cute car  play mats.

Girl and a Glue Gun
Homemade by Jill
Living the Sweet Life
Just Sew Sassy
Oopsey Daisy

Happy Holidays everyone! I'm spending mine taking car of sick children....but at least they can play with their cars inside while they recover! Thanks for reading.