Kid's Activity Mat: Upcycled Bed Sheet

Usually my old towels and stained clothing get broken down into cleaning rags, but bed sheets present a dilemma in terms of absorbency. They’re simply not great at cleaning. So when I encountered a tenacious bright blue paint stain on a fitted, king-sized sheet, I was forced to get creative on how to repurpose this item.

Meanwhile, I was preparing for a family road trip wherein two children under the age of four would spend 25+ hours in a car making picnic-type pit stops only to end up at the final destination to spend each day hanging about in the outdoors, picnic-style. Are you following me?

Enter the homemade picnic play mat!!

This craft requires: 

• Fabric paint/markers 
• Sewing machine and the ability to sew in a straight line 
• Thread 

Optional: 

• scrap fabric for trim 
• scrap fabric for corners if using a fitted sheet 

I began by cutting out the elastic on each corner to allow the sheet to lie flat. Given I was working with a king-sized sheet, I should have cut the remaining flat piece into a rectangle but I didn’t want to lose the extra space so I kept it as is.

Next, I traced my design using a marker or pencil. Since we were embarking on a road trip, I drew a series of streets with landmarks around them before inviting my three year old son to help colour them in and add detail.

The transformation. Image Source: Ellen

We included a volcano, fire station, construction site, mountains, mine, boulders, lake, forest, and hospital. All the most important things, in my son’s opinion. I packed the fabric markers along with the blanket and we kept the artwork incomplete so we could invite our friends to continue the process while on vacation.

Highlights. Image Source: Ellen

If you’ve been working with a rectangle, you can simply fold the edges and sew a seam to prevent the fabric from fraying. Since I had four gaping corners, I filled them with some Canadian road trip fabric (how perfect!) and finished the entire thing with a bright binding along the edges.

Image Source: Ellen 

The final result is far from complete but will evolve as we spend time on it. It was dragged through seven states and two provinces and will now be used for picnics and play in our backyard and local parks.

How do you use old bedding? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

- Ellen (Volunteer)