We had a playmat in the house when I was a kid, and it was awesome. We played with it all the time! I was always under the impression that my mom made it for us, but turns out it was made by my Aunt Kathy. Mom was nice enough to email me some photos:
It had all familiar places on it, like the church, school, bank, etc. Most importantly, it had a Jack in the Box (my dad worked for the company for many years).
I still have a long way to go, but I thought I'd share some of my sketches for buildings I'm planning for Oscar's playmat. It will include all the important places, like Grandma and Grandpa's house, daddy's office, our playground, Trader Joe's, In-N-Out, etc. :)
I also hunted around online for some playmat ideas and came across this very cute and simple tutorial for a portable playmat on the Fiskars Craft blog:
(photo from Fiskars)
I love the little flaps on the car wash and the shoelace gas pump. Cute, no?