Happy Rainy Monday

Not sure what it is like where you are, but it is raining here, and that equals a very busy day for this here teacher.  But, I did want to post my kind-of tutorial for the advent calender I made this year.

It isn't a true tutorial - more like some tips I used while putting this advent calender together.  So here we go.

First, here is the finished product.

It is in ad odd place where I can't get far enough back to take a good photo.  But you get the idea.  I will take a better photo when I get my camera back.  

The past few years I have been making these out of scrapbook paper, and not really loving them, probably the reason you have not seen them.  Alyson doesn't care one bit, she just looks forward to what we get to do, or what treat she gets.

This year I went with something that will definitely last us many years, or until I can't take it anymore. :)

I started off with some basic craft felt from Michael's.  I got red,green and white.  Two pouches can be made out of one 8x10 piece of felt.

First you need to fold the felt in half horizontally, or like a hamburger like I tell my kiddos.  Cut at the fold. And then fold the halves again and cut.  So you should end up with four pieces from the one piece of felt (as in the photo below).

I then cut the white piece of felt into long strips.  I basically folded the felt up on itself and cut as I was going until I ended up with some 1 1/2 inch strips. 

I then put me machine settings on the loosest stitch and ruffled up the felt.

You will wind up with some excess white, you will trim that off after you fit it to your green(or red) pouch piece.

With ONE piece of green felt.  Fit your ruffle around the top of the felt piece.  You can pin it or like, me, just run it through the sewing machine with a quick stitch.  Make sure to tuck the ruffle around the edges.  Cut off any excess you may have.

Now you are ready to put the back onto the pouch.

I simple used a zig zag stitch to close it up.

It goes pretty fast.  To hook them together I snipped to small holes in the back and ran the just through it.  I then tied the ends and was able to hook them onto the wall.  So easy, right?  I added the simple scrapbook stamp and numbers and festive fabric to finish it off.  

Hope you liked this.  I am definitely going to be using this one for a couple years.  yay!  Have a wonderful day!

Michelle