Kiddie Crafty-ups and downs

In the latest Living Crafts magazine there was a bit about felting with pre felt. Pre felts are partially felted bits of wool. They are supposedly easier to work with than felting from fleece making them great projects to do with kids. One of the crafts they showed was for making fall place mats. I really liked the idea so I got the pre felts pieces and we got to work. I cut out the white base and some leaves. The bug cut our some shapes and pieces or wool yarn. Then we got to work on the felting.... easy. Right. I had a lot of problems getting it to felt all the way. We worked it and worked it. There aren't any pictures of this process because it was so labor intense and frustrating because it just wasn't really working. It would felt a little bit and enough for the pieces to all stick together, but not as much as it was supposed to and the finished pieces was very thin and flimsy. Totally wouldn't hold up to being a place mat. Days were spent working on these things. Finally I gave up, put each one in it's own pillowcase then threw them in the washing machine.
They felted. A bit more than one would want..... they are little small and since it was in the machine and of course I forgot about them for a good hour, they are a little lumpy.
But they are still use able, just not for a big meal.
Also we recycled some crayons. They look cooler than they color. The bug has to really work them to color with them and being the shape they are it isn't for precise coloring. It was very fun to do and to see how they turned out.