Felt board

Sorry, I had this post written up already a few days ago but didn't have the time to take pictures. But here it finally is.

I really wanted to cross some things off my "I am working on..." list ... I have made quite a few things that have not even been on that list! But that list kinda didn't change at all during the last weeks.
So I sat down to finish the felt board. I figured cutting out felt should be quick and easy and therefore satisfying! :-) Oh well ...

I did not choose my project - or rather my templates - very wisely. I wanted to make some dress-up dolls for the felt board. I used these templates, which are actually thought to be used as paper dress-up dolls. I figured it should work just as well with felt. Well, not exactly correct. The thing is that the outline of the clothes in the template is often very similar. The clothes "look" different because of their details. However, I did not want to embroider all the details into felt - I just wanted to cut out some simple stuff. Therefore if you cut out four different pairs of pants - they will eventually all look the same in felt ... except for the colour maybe.
I ended up cutting out two dolls and some hair and clothes for the two. But I was not too satisfied with the look of it all and therefore did not want to cut more stuff for these dolls.
Well, my daughter still loves it. She repeatedly asks me which hair is boys' hair and refuses to believe that long hair usually is girls' hair. :-)

Sorry, the face of the doll at the right side looks very weird. I tried to draw it on with a ballpen, which was not a very clever idea. Did simply not work very well. On the left doll I used a felt-tip pen. Much better!

Meanwhile I have found some REALLLY REALLY lovely magnetic dress-up dolls and I really want to make these. I really want them ... if my girl doesn't want them I will play with them! :-) And I am NOT kidding. You have to check them out, they are simply gorgeous! They are made by Lier and while you are at her blog Ikat bag you should browse and check out her other posts. She makes such beautiful stuff - I can't imagine how she finds the time for all of the great projects with three kids!

Because I was not very satisfied with the dress up dolls I wanted to make something else for the felt board. So I made a snowman this afternoon. I like it much more than the dress-up dolls. My daughter likes it, too. However, it is not something she can play with for a long time. She will get the dolls or the snowman dressed - and that's it. It seems like - well, a lot of work for this little time of quite playing. :-)

I was also searching the internet for other felt board ideas. Many I have come across were nice but seemed to be more appropriate for smaller children (like colour matching or shape recognition). I had the idea of cutting out letters to form words on the board - but the idea alone of cutting all the letters of the alphabet at least twice ... *faint* I might cut out numbers. If I cut out a set of 0-9 twice I would be able to get until 99 ... that feels much better. However, I don't really know whether "just" putting numbers on the felt board will be very much fun for my daughter ...

I saw some really cute felt board ideas with a "under water" theme and some with "flowers". But they usually don't look like something that will be done in one or two evenings ... and I simply don't know whether it is much fun to play with such things for my daughter. Do any of you have experience with that? What kinda things do kids like to do with felt boards? And what age range are felt boards appropriate for?
(These questions might sound weird. But in Germany felt boards are just not around at all. I have never seen one - neither to buy nor in use! So I do like the idea of it - but I have simply no experience and noone to ask around.)