Creative Mom Cafe

Whip Up os doing a month of crafts for kids that you don’t want to miss. Check out these cute, and simple, pencil toppers or these creative glove puppets!

I showed you all on Wednesday that I was sewing something up with pink felt. It was a cute little felt bag, perfect for Valentine’s Day. Jut fill it up with candies, a toy, and a card and you have a sweet way to say you care.

The inspiration came when I saw these cute felt Valentine gift bags
from Hearth Song. They are so adorable, and so simple. I knew I could make them myself. As it turned out they are so simple anyone can make them! All you need is some felt, a needle and thread, and a basic blanket stitch. Don’t worry, it is a simple stitch to learn. I recently learned it myself when I attempted to make some felt christmas ornaments. Use this tutorial on sewing felt and you can’t go wrong!

Now here’s how I made the bag.

I started with a piece of pink felt, 8×11 inches. I measured and cut a 2inch strip off one of the long sides and set it aside. This left a piece of felt 6X11 to work with. I then took that piece and folded it in half longways, so that it bcame a 6×5 1/2 piece of felt. Off of one of the short sides I measured and cut a 2 1/4 inch strip.

After that I cut through the folds of all my pieces to separate them. The original long 2inch strip was cut in half to create two 2×5 1/2 strips. The would bcome the two sides of the bag. The 2 1/4 in strip was cut along the center fold to become two 2 1/4 pieces. One would be the bottom and another would become the handles. Lastly the left over rectangle was cut along the fold to become two 3 3/4×5 1/2 inch panels. These were the front and back pieces.

I used the basic blanket stitch that I mentioned earlier to sew the side panels to the front and back panels, then sewed the bottom panel on. I used white thread to stand out against the pink felt, but you can use matching thread to make the sewing less obvious. The remaining piece was cut into 2 long pieces, then folded over and sewn along the open edge. I did a quick hand stitch to sew these into the front and back panels as small handles. I haven’t decorated mine yet, but you can cover this stitching with decorations on the outside.

All in all with cutting, sewing, and answering 50 million “Whacha doin’ mom?” one bag took me about 45 minutes. I’m certain an experienced sewer, or someone without little kids directly under foot, could get a bag done is far less time. And as simple as they are if you have children old enough to work with a needle this is a great project for them to try.

crafts, Valentine’s Day, felt, gift bags