A local map playmat

For a while I have been thinking about making Luath a playmat.  I have had many different ideas and seen lots of fantastic ones for inspiration.  Finally I settled on making her a playmat of where we live.  Once again my creative juice got buzzing, but I have limited time to create something, so here is my easy and quick version.  I still need to hem and add a back to it, possibly another playmat.

First I drew a map of where we live.  I know the area well, but a look on a map online or the old fashioned paper version could help.  I drew it on a 10cm x 10cm page so it was easy to scale up to my finished 1m x 1m playmat. 

I used a plain sheet as my playmat base. I marked squares onto the drawing (at 5cm spaces) to help when I drew onto the playmat (I made marks on the edges on the mat at 25cm spaces). In my pipedream I was going to use mixed media to create the mat - pens, felt, wool etc, but I discovered that chunky crayons coloured the sheet at high speed and well.

oops upside down!

So in less than an hour it was ready.  I haven't added all the details, I have missed out some lochans, roads/tracks and streams.  I wanted to leave it more flexible so Luath could use it as a farm, jungle, dinosaur land or however else she wished.  If she chooses to use it more as a local area mat then I will add in the rest of the details.  Daddy has already asked if we could put a railway station in our village.

I am so glad that I did a fast and finished playmat than a lovely, creative, still in the process for a long time one.  Luath has already loved placing her house on the mat, going to the "trolls" bridge, driving the bus.... We also had a session with some sheep wandering all over the map, which is exactly what they get up to here!

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