A DIY puzzle for the little King. . .

So, I did get a tad bit crafty a couple days ago. I wanted to make my 7 month old nephew, Kingston, a little something handmade. He loves to hold things and touch, and I thought that a puzzle would be a perfect thing for him to play with. I actually used fabric that is used in his nursery to make it sort of go with the theme that Mary created. He is absolutely adorable, and I was so excited about crafting a puzzle for this little guy. Since he is so young, I wanted to make sure it was light-weight and safe for him to play with. Thus, I used lots of cardboard to create this project. Can't wait to get started!!!!!!

Here are a couple of things I used to put this adorable puzzle together, pick your favorite fabrics, and then find some old pages from a book. The colorful fabric was for the letters, you will need enough fabric for each letter. I have 4 letters, so I needed four different kinds. in addition, you will need 3 pieces of thick fabric such as felt, and 2 pieces of random durable scrap fabric. These 5 will have to be big enough to cut out individual letters. They will be used for the inside of EACH of the letters.  I ended up needing 12 pieces of felt and 8 pieces of durable scrap fabric. You will also need a fun fabric for the front of the puzzle, and a canvas-type (thick) fabric for the back. You will need a total of 4 pieces of cardboard cut out the same size. You can make the boards as large or as small as you need. I did enough to fit the name "King." You will also need a heavy-duty glue gun and lots of patience.

Take 3 pieces of cardboard and cut them all to be the same size. Then on a piece of paper, draw out letters, cut them out, and trace them onto one of the cardboard pieces. SAVE the paper stencils, you will use them as "patterns" for sewing the letters much later.

Then, using an exacto knife (this gets tricky and messy!), cut out what you traced on the first cardboard piece.Use the first piece as a "stencil" to cut out the other two cardboard pieces, just to make sure that they line up perfectly. The next step is to hot glue each of the layers on top of each other. Make sure you especially get lots of the glue on the outer edges of the board just so that they all can stay together more easily.

After you have all 3 layers cut out, take your fabric that you want for the board of the puzzle, and cut it so that you have enough fabric (about an inch) on each side hanging over. Flip the fabric and the board over (as shown) so that you see the back of the puzzle. Hot glue the fabric to the back of the cardboard. When you are gluing, make sure to keep the fabric VERY taut and tight as it is easier to do the next step if you keep it tight and gently pull on the fabric during the gluing process. For the next step, take your exacto knife (and a pair of sewing shears if necessary) and make slits through the tight fabric where your letter spaces are. This is very tricky and can take some time. I found that holding the board up to the light to see the outline helped a lot. Make lots of slits and cut additional diagonal slits as needed on the corners/curves of the letters so that you can wrap the fabric more easily.

Ok. Get ready for the hardest part of this project. This is very very tricky. Take the hot glue, and place it right in the inside of the cut-out letter along the edges, and carefully fold up the "tabs" of fabric that you created. You are trying to sort of wrap the fabric around the letter, so put the glue on the inside of the 3 pieces you had stacked up.Do one line/curve of a letter at a time, and be patient. Also be careful when you fold the "tabs" of fabric up, I burned my finger pretty bad when I rushed, so make sure to take this step very slow. Wait for about a minute and a half after you glue it up for the sides to dry. After you glue up all the "tabs", take the glue, and glue down any stray fabric that is sticking up, as shown below.

After all the glue is done drying, inspect your board. I had several places where I cut a slit too much, and it left a gap where there was cardboard. Have no fear!!!!! There is a solution. I just cut a tiny square of the fabric I used for the front of the board, and "tacked" it with the glue where the hole was. Trim it up if it's too big, but this should work for covering for most mistakes.

Now on to some easier steps. For this step, you will need 1 piece of cardboard that is the same as the other three that you just glued and stacked together and some canvas-like fabric (or a fabric of your choice). Take the 3 pages from the old book, and place them on the base. DO NOT GLUE until you make sure that you put the front of the board on top to make sure there are no readjustments or more paper needed. I only needed 3 pieces of paper, but you might need more/less depending on how big you make your puzzle. After you check, you can then gently glue the paper down.  For the next part, be careful. Place the base face up on top of the canvas fabric so that you can see the words. Make sure to leave enough fabric hanging over to fold over. Glue the fabric one side at a time CLOSE to the edge of the cardboard, making sure that you are pulling the fabric very tautly like you did for the front of the puzzle board back in the beginning. Trim the edges of the fabric you glued so that there is no excess on the inside. Let it dry, and it should look like the image below when you are finished.

Yay, the back looks so good and we are ready to move on to the assembling step!!!!

Place the front and the back of the board on top of each other so that the edges line up. Take the glue and glue the inside edges and very outside edges of the puzzle together. Do only one side at a time, and let each side dry for 3 minutes before continuing to the next side. Use LOTS of glue, don't go easy on it. You want this board to stick and be heavy duty! When gluing the outer edges, its almost like caulking. Stick the tip of the gun into the tiny gap, and pump glue very thickly so that it will stay. Your puzzle board is now complete! Yay!!!!!!

Now is the time to use those paper letters for patterns!!!! I hope you saved them. For my letters, I wanted them to have a little bit of dimension since it is a puzzle. We are going to use a bunch of fabric and stack it on top of each other and then sew it to give it the dimension. There are 2 steps for making each letter. First is the "inside." As you can see, my "scrap" fabric was a red floral pattern, my grey felt, and my blue felt. Individually cut out each letter and place on top of each other and pin in place like the last picture shows.

With the setting on "small zig-zag", sew pretty close to the edge of the fabric. Don't leave much seam allowance. If you leave too much space, your edges will probably fray.

Next, choose fabric that you would like to go on the "outside" of the letter. You might want it to sort of coordinate with the fabric that you chose for the outside of the puzzle. But that is just a suggestion :) Cut it out with the same paper pattern and pin these two (one on the front of the letter, and one on the back) on top of the "inside" letter you just made.

For the final letter, you could either put your setting on a straight stitch, OR do another small zig-zag stitch close to the edge of the letter. Either way, leave a very small amount of seam allowance, but leave enough so you can trim the sides to fit into the letter holes. Then you are free to be creative and decorate your letters in whatever way you choose. I did a simple embroidery stitch on my "K" to add some fun since it was such a light color. It just needed something else. Be creative!!!! Do these steps for the next letters that you have, I did it for three more... I'd also suggest getting some "stop-fraying" glue from the craft store. My letters were fraying really bad. It just helps make the finished project more neat.

And FINALLY you are done. This was not an easy project by any means, but I loved the result. And little Kingston did too ;) Plus, it is extremely inexpensive and would make a cute homemade gift. It's great for younger children as it is light-weight and the fabric letters are good little toys that can be washed. Hope you've enjoyed this! Happy Crafting!

Little Kingston Sawaya with his new puzzle. . . I love this kid.