Busy Bag #6: Mailbox!

This summer to coincide with our (definitely one, possibly two) epic road trip(s), I am making busy bags for Lucy.  See the others by clicking here.
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Yes, this busy bag gets an exclamation point!  This is the best-looking one in my opinion, if not the most fun.  I really turned out perfectly, just as I'd imagined it.

Ingredients (all from my stash):
felt
rick rack
buttons
velcro
embroidery thread
glue gun

I also had enormous help from this lady, who makes the most beautiful, elaborate busy book pages you will ever see, and then gives away the pattern PDFs.  My mailbox's body and flag are taken almost completely from her pattern, and my letters are loosely based on hers.

[The scene. It pretty much always looks something like this when I'm improvising.] 

In case you're not up to speed on children's television programming from the late 1990's and early 2000's, this is Mailbox from Blue's Clues, Lucy favorite TV show (measured by hours watched).

[Here's the mail, it never fails, it makes me wanna wag my tail, when it comes, I wanna wail....]

I hot glued the eyes and mouth on, because I didn't want a bunch of stitching ruining the effect.

[Maaaaaaail!!!]

["Heeere's ya lettah!"]

I did the stamp embroidery freehand, so it kinda got away from me sometimes. (Like where the paw print really should have four toes...)

These are quite scaled up from the pattern, because I wanted them to hold decent-sized pieces of paper.

They also open all the way up, like the letters on Blue's Clues.

I cut a whole bunch of pieces of paper to fit in them, so Lucy can write whatever she wants on them.

And it all fits neatly in this (I believe) former bed sheet packaging.

Also I found this while I was looking for the "mail time" song. So great!