I got some questions about Brendan's car mat and have been meaning to get back to you all on them. Our mat is nearly 20 yrs old now! My sister in law made it for our oldest boys way back then. It is lovely. The base is heavy green twill and there are pockets along the bottom to store cars. She appliqued roads, trees, and houses. There is even a pond with little duck buttons on it. There are also green pom pom shrubs here and there.
To be honest our big boys didn't play with it much. We were slow to the less is more game. They just had far too much stuff and tended not to concentrate much on any of it. Made for a LOT of clean up and hassle and waste. (not to mention wound up kids) Brendan and Tess have a fraction of the playthings they had. In fact Brendan's cars are among his few toys at the moment. He REALLY enjoys them though. Lesson learned.
Some of you loved the mat but feared your sewing skills or lack thereof would prevent you from making a similar one. There are still options! You can use fusible interfacing like Wonder Under to iron on your roads and accessories. Or you can just paint! With all the fabric paint available you can make very nice roads etc. Just be sure to cut your base with pinking shears or iron it under with Stitch Witchery or something to keep it from fraying.
Starry Sky Journal 
As always, you inspire 🙂
We have a huge lovely car mat, just bought a big piece of quilted fabric that has roads and houses and the like as the pattern. I always meant to bind the edges, but never got around to it, we just let the boys play with it, Matthew loves it. Still at 5 1/2, he plays with his cars a LOT.