This has been a top-secret project for a few weeks now, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you! I’ve made these playmat toy bags for our gorgeous friends Rachel and Daria – Rachel has now given birth to baby Joshua and Daria (my partner-in-craft) is due very soon! I wanted to make them something extra special and it took me ages to find the perfect thing. I found the tutorial for this in the free book that came with the December 2013 issue of Craftseller magazine, and it was originally designed by Mia Underwood in her book, Nordic Crafts.

The original design of the bag is the night scene, but I decided to make my own daytime version too.

I actually found the instructions a little tricky to follow so in a few places I just did my own thing…! I chose some funky fabrics and cut out the appliqué pieces first, before laying them out on the large cotton pieces. I used a zig-zag stitch to attach the pieces to the fabric, and placed some wadding underneath the mountain pieces and a piece of foil blanket (the ones you get after running!) underneath the pond.

The daytime version has some different fabrics on it, to contrast with the green ‘grass’ fabric, and I included a sun on this version instead of the stars from the original.

The bag has velcro at the top to keep all of the toys in. I found this funky elephant fabric in John Lewis for the backing, and decided to get it in two different shades because I couldn’t decide which one I liked best!

I’m so pleased with how they turned out – I hope the babies and Mummies are too!

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