Portable play mats made from Graze boxes!

I still haven't got over my excitement about making my own play mats and finding a use for my old graze boxes especially after Mati enjoyed playing with her space play mat using her Playmobil people for nearly an hour this morning. She was really excited about the idea of making more of them. So after a trip to the park to make the most of a relatively sunny and not freezing cold day we got out the glue and collage material!

First I cut the join between the box and it's spine to allow it to lay flat. Then I taped round the edges so it would hold its shape better.

We were using a special edition spring graze box with pictures of flowers and field inside so a farm was the obvious choice of play mat. We recently visited Spring Barn Farm so Mati was keen to base her play mat on this farm. It had a soft play area and 3 slides inside plus the all important cafe!! You can see these are all included.

I find it quite hard not to interfere too much and take over! I tried to let mati lead the way. Mati is pretty good with glue now but I had to add a bit extra to make sure it all stuck down. We used a combination of pritt stick and PVA and we just used whatever scraps of paper we had left over from other projects plus cotton wool for the sheep (my inspired idea!!) I asked mati what she wanted to include and then I cut it out or if it could be made from torn paper (grass, ponds etc) she did it. I made suggestions too of what to include and what different materials we could use.

The thing I was most excited about was that we were able to use the graze box snack dividers and small fields by sticking it over some tissue paper we had already stuck down (I've been saving these too convinced that they have some fantastic use!)

We were both pleased with the results and Mati's playmobil people enjoyed their Sunday afternoon trip to the farm!

I was on a roll so I also made a portable road play mat!

This is just the napkins that come with the graze box stuck down and then black sugar paper to make the roads ad other coloured paper/craft foam for the park, houses, bridge etc. You could make this a real journey e.g from your home to school, including things you might see along the way.

Here is the space play mat again from earlier....I painted the graze box for this one (on the outside) However the box began to go a bit soggy and warped so I think I would avoid doing this in future. I was using acrylics with not very much water. The play mat is based on a story I made up for mati about her going to the moon for a picnic with me and her dad.

I've got loads of ideas for more of these - ones based on nursery, winter/Christmas, holidays, the supermarket, journeys, the beach etc etc. I just cut the shapes out free hand but you could print out pictures to use as templates or use photos, stickers of cut out images from magazines. Children don't worry too much if a duck doesn't really look like a duck etc! Mati made a play mat afterwards entirely on her own with a few random pieces of tissue paper stuck down but to her it was a road and mountains and a swimming pool!

I collected loads of ideas for portable play mats and portable dolls houses (a future project!) on Pinterest so have a look!

I'd love to see your play mats - you don't have to use graze boxes, a piece of card cut out from a cereal box folded in half will do or just a piece of paper. A DVD box might be good too. I like the idea of a box as you can put figures/animals in it to carry around. I do need to work out how to make some sort of clip for it and may be a handle?