How to make baby play mats?????

Question

Anyone got any ideas?
Preferably an educational one - alphabet, numbers etc.
What colours should I use? How should I decorate it, what should I use?
Thanks, I will choose a best answer also.

Answer 1

If you're looking for something for a real "baby" as opposed to a toddler, etc., you'll especially want bright colors and reasonably "graphic" designs with constrast between colors, and strong lines and shapes.
Those are the kinds of things that they can see and focus on best at that age (even though many adults like to associate babies with soft pastels, etc.). So the designs will be "educational" in that focusing on definite colors and shapes like that helps babies "learn" to see, and also learn to "organize" the information coming into their eyes.

Once they get a little older and language comes into play, then other types of images can be added (though it's still best to still have the images stand out easily by their shape and color). Those are often animals and things the child might see everyday (sun, tree, train, house, ball, etc.)... the child can then begin to distinguish what each of those looks like and practice calling each by name.

As for how to decorate and what things to use, that depends on various things.
For a baby, you wouldn't want anything that would be uncomfortable or unsafe so that cuts out a lot of things. In general, you'd probably just want to buy fabric or fleece, etc., that was preprinted with patterns and colors like the ones above, or you could make pads like small "quilts" (from very simple ones to more complex ones, depending on your experience) from fabrics like those --or you could just get the colors and shapes of the designs by the way you sewed them together).

For older kids, the same types of things apply but there's a wider scope of images and/or patterns they might like or recognize, and you could put *some* things that might stick out, etc., on play mats made for them.

The easiest thing though would just to be buy a length of pre-printed fabric or fleece (from the fabric store), then make it into a mat/quilt by simply binding (covering) the edges (to keep them from raveling) if it's thick enough, or by making the layers into a small flat "quilt" by using two pieces of fabric/blanket back to back (a thin sheet of "batting" could be used between the two pieces if you wanted).
If you wanted, you could sew some lines across and through the "sandwich" top keep them from shifting too much (or you could "tie" through all layers with yarn or ribbon/etc), then bind the edges.

Btw, one quick way to make a quilt or pad like this would be using the "inside-out" method for making a simple quilt.
For that you'd stack the (whole) pieces together as layers (the bottom or "backing"--right side down, then the batting, then the "top"--right side up)... pin them togehter here and there, then sew all the layers together all the way around the perimeter near the edge (say 1/2" away) *but* leave an opening on one side that's 8" or larger ....then turn the sandwich inside out through the opening, and blind stitch the opening closed.


Have fun!

Diane B.

Answer 2

if you want to know where to buy infant creeping mats or baby play mats you can try to go to wal-mart and find a set , or you can surf the net and get them online http://dwz.cn/play-mat