Pony Mat

A while ago, I saw a pony mat on Pinterest.  Genius, I thought.  Emily enjoys the car mat I made for her a couple years ago, and she doesn't play with cars that much.  Ponies, she plays with.  And how fun would it be to have a play mat for them, where they could be tucked away and travel with us?

I knew I wanted to do my play mat differently than the one I saw; that one was a pony farm, and used brown as the base fabric, and I believe that ponies should get to play on grass, instead of in the dirt.  So, I picked up some green fabric when I hit the sale at the JoAnn's that was closing near us.  Emily helped me choose which fabric to get.  She was pretty sure some of the green fabric we considered could not be grass for her ponies.  I also wanted the mat to be like the world on the My Little Pony show that Emily watches sometimes.  So the ponies have houses (which double as their holding pockets) and there's a little forest.

Besides the green for the grass, I had all of the materials for this on hand.  (Do you recognize the leftover fabric from covering the chair? I used it for the back.)

I knew it was a hit when Emily played with it while it was only partly done.  After it was done, I showed it to her, and she was very excited about the houses.  Which was gratifying, since I spent the longest on them.