Busy Baby Box Farm Activity Cube Frame

I made the squares for Farm box found in Leisure Arts Busy Baby Boxes back in the summer but while the pattern doesn't call for it I wanted to back the squares with plastic canvas to make the box a little stronger. This required ordering plastic canvas and that took me longer to get to and thus I finished the frame for the box this week and wanted to post my progress and notes for future reference.

I edged the plastic canvas squares before sewing them to the squares. I learned this trick when making the castle I wrote about earlier. Plastic canvas has a way of edging through crochet sometimes but if it is covered in yarn it isn't an issue. Sewing them on was not an issue from there. I did not line the roof pieces. The roof is the one area of the busy box that doesn't have any attachments. The red loft area does have some windows, but I'm not worried about these needing additional backing. I believe the structure should be solid with the base provided.

The premise of a busy box is that it provides young children with activities on the box to keep them amused. Each side generally has something different for the child to explore. The one exception as I mentioned above for this box is the roof side. Most of the boxes I've seen are flat on all sides. One of the things that drew me to this project was that it was more than a box. The farm theme has been popular and I thought sacrificing one activity side was worth it to continue the farm theme.

After sewing the plastic canvas to the sides I was concerned about assembling the box but that proved to be easier than expected. The directions are clear and used for both boxes in the pattern set.

This leaves me with five sides of the box to decorate and five puppets to make as I made the chicken over the summer. I think this is doable with my deadline. The big hurdle was finishing the box.

My box is not as wide as the box pictured I believe because of the plastic canvas which I preferred. I wasn't crazy about the overstuffed look in the book's pictures.