Homemade embroidered felt numbers

I love crafting with felt, it's so easy to work with and you can buy felt in such lovely bright colours. I made these embroidered felt numbers partly to help Harry with number recognition, and partly because I thought they'd be fun to make! They were very quick to put together once I'd cut out the felt and I had fun coming up with different ways to decorate them.

To make a template for the felt numbers I chose a font that I liked (Verdana) in Word and enlarged it on the screen. Then I just traced over the numbers onto scrap paper. The numbers are made from two pieces of felt the same colour cut to the shape of the number, one side is embellished and then they are sewn together. To embellish them I used a variety of sequins, beads and embroidery in contrasting colours. Because they are tactile you can run your fingers over them to trace the shape.

You could also add magnets to the back so that they can go on the fridge or radiator, or you could back them with cardboard to make them sturdier. I'm hoping that they will be useful to teach Harry to recognise numbers, and for counting games - for example putting them in the correct order or gathering together groups of items to match the number.