Felt Valentine Envelopes

I've seen a few version of felt envelopes floating around blogland so I thought I'd try to make my own. Jocelyn's preschool group was at our home today just in time for Valentine's Day. I made these felt envelopes for each girl  (there are only 4) in about 1 1/2 hours. Complete with their name and a stamp! These are a simple, inexpensive way to show your love. And they last a while and can be used again each year, or throughout the year!

Felt Valentine Envelope 

Here is a simple tutorial for you so you can make your own! Actually, this makes two envelopes!

First gather your materials. For TWO envelopes you'll need:
*1--9"x12" piece of felt
*1--9"x12" coordinating piece of cotton fabric
*1--9"x12" piece of fusible adhesive (double sided)
*6--2"x2" pieces of felt, of another color
*2--2"x2" piece of same coordinating fabric
* 2 1" piece of strong velcro
*pinking shears

Start by cutting out your materials. Because of the size of felt, you can make two envelopes. You can either just purchase a 9"x12" piece of felt or cut it from a bigger piece. Cut the fusible adhesive and cotton according to same size. If you need help purchasing fusible adhesive check out this blog for help in differentiating. Most helpful!

Cut 4 pieces of felt, and two pieces of  fusible adhesive, all 2"x2" pieces

Cut 2 pieces of felt, 2 pieces of cotton, 2 pieces of fusible adhesive, all 2"x2" pieces. (the fusible adhesive is already adhered to the felt, so not shown). 

Let's make the heart closure for the back of the envelope. Iron fusible adhesive to one side of  the first piece of felt, according to directions on package. Peel paper backing off. Set aside. Then hold the 2nd piece on top of the 1st and cut a heart out. (not pictured) I just eye balled it. If you'd like, or are not a very good heart cutter (I did cut a few wonky ones that had to be thrown out), use a stencil or draw a heart on the felt with a pen (you'll cut around it anyway). Repeat for the second felt clasp for second envelope. 

Once the hearts are cut out, sew the hook side (the female, or fuzzy side) of the velcro onto the first piece of felt to the opposite side with the fusible webbing (so not the side with the fusing). Sew velcro onto heart, on all four sides of velrco, be sure to backstich well at each end. 

For the second heart, or the stamp, you'll need to fuse the fabric to the cotton, just like the previous step. So it'll be three layers--felt--fusible adhesive--cotton. Then cut  into a heart. Repeat with the for second envelopes stamp. 

Now move onto the envelope. Fuse the felt and fabric together. It'll look like this. 

Cut this piece, using pinking shears, into two pieces. Lay the piece down, lengthwise. Cut at the 6" mark. So each piece should end up 6" x 9". I then cut around each piece so it's pinked all around. 

Now take the first heart, with the velcro adhered. Sew it onto one of short ends, on the right side of the envelope (or the felted side). Just center it, and sew it so the velcro piece is left peeking above the flap. Pin.

 It should look like this when finished. 

 This is the right side of the envelope with the heart closure.

Next  sew on the stamp. First I fold the envelope to get an idea of where to place it. Fold up from the bottom, 3". Then fold the top over about 2", leaving a 1" head space between the flap and the bottom part of the envelope. Once you've figured out how it will all be folded, sew the heart stamp on in the right hand upper corner. 

Then if you'd like to add text do that next. You can embroider a name. I was low on time so I machine stitched the girls names. Or you can leave it blank or add squiggles as seen in this envelope. 

Once the stamp, clasp and name are on move to the bottom of the envelope. Sew on the other piece of velcro.  About 1 1/2" from the bottom. But you may want to fold it all up again, with the clasp down, to make sure the clasp lays on top of the velcro in the right way.

Then sew it all up. Fold the envelope up, leaving the flap open. With the inside of the flap facing up, sew, starting on the right hand corner of the envelope. Backstitch right away then continue sewing. When you get to where the pocket and flap meet, backstitch again, to make sure it stays secure when little hands are putting Valentine's in and out. Continue sewing and stop when you get to the heart clasp. As pictured. Stop, backstitch and pick up the foot and move it past the heart (so you don't sew through it). Replace the foot on the other side of the heart and sew a bit. Backstitch. 

It will look like this. 

 Then continue sewing until you reach the pocket again. Backstitch like before. Then continue sewing until you get to the bottom. Backstitch. It should be sewn on all three sides (not the bottom). Trim all threads and press and you're finished!!

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Relief Society Valentine's Dinner

This event happened last February. I had blogged about it on my personal blog but kept putting it off for this one. So here are some ideas of how to feed 80-100 people for around $350 if you do all of it yourself and pull resources from people around you.

In my church I have the opportunity to plan our monthly activities for the women (called the Relief Society). I LOVE this assignment. And I have an awesome committee full of talented and willing ladies. We've done some wonderful things together as a committee to unite the women in our area and I feel we've been achieving our goals each month we have a meeting. But in February, we had our biggest meeting yet and for the year. We pumped it up for months ahead to get the greatest turn out possible. As is common in each activity, there were a few hiccups along the way and the night of, otherwise it was nearly flawless. We worked well together and from the comments from those in attendance, we know it was a success.

The theme: Enhancing Personal Relationships. We used an Italian theme with the food and for decor we kept it to the month of love with a red, white and pink color palate. Here are some photos and some descriptions. In a budget under $350 we served an elegant dinner to 100 people (including youth servers and children's class helpers), took a love language quiz and listened to professional counselor (who happens to be in the RS Presidency) teach us about enhancing our marriages. I thought we did a pretty nice job!

Here is the gym. We only used half of it to make it more intimate. We fit 10 round tables with 8 people at each, on this half.

The entrance.

Carnations from Costco, handed out to each sister (after I remembered) at the end. We had them each wear a nametag. Flower ball on clearance at Michael's after Valentine's Day sales.

Here is Nina and her daughter Sarita. Nina, on our committee, lovingly made all the paper good items including these nametags, with her many papercrafting supplies. Here she is greeting the sisters as they came in.

The buffet table. Rhonda, who has catering experience, suggested we put Christmas lights underneath the tablecloth. I liked the softened look and then the lights don't get in the way or dirty when serving the food.

I made a little fabric garland with fabric donated by my friend Raylynn a while ago. You never know when you'll use your fabric scraps so keep them anyway!

I made these silk topiaries with fabric I had in my stash. I'll share a tutorial sometime. I made the topiaries and garlands myself with my own materials to save money and so that I could keep them, which helped with the budget as well.

One our committee members, Michelle, suggested that we ask for volunteers to decorate individual tables. Each was unique and brought a nice personal touch. I gave them a 12" x12" piece of glittery cardstock as a guideline for how much space they could use. Here are a few examples.

Here is the speaker's table.

Nina made an "events" card with results form the quiz on the back. Notice the goblets? She also donated use of these that she had previously used in her daughter's wedding. When the women first entered this was one of the first things they noticed, these beautiful goblets. It added an elegant touch. Nina found them on clearance for $3 a box and was happy to be able to use them again. We didn't break one! She also had battery operated tea lights

We had menu's printed on a tri-fold with a quiz printed on the inside. As the women were seated and waiting to start the evening we had them take a version of the 5 Love Language quiz, which unbeknown to me, was part of Marlene's talk. The little red heart was supposed to act as a little cupid's heart. I had specially ordered red golf pencils on ebay but they did not ship on time (grrrrr) so we had to gather regular pencils (including my children's attractive printed holiday ones they get from school and other places) and didn't have time to punch holes in them to make the cupid affect. Minor detail. I used an 8 1/2" x 11" glittery piece of cardstock as a placemat.


One of the highlights of the evening was having a live quartet playing classical music. Nina's son-in-law created a group of his musical friends and they willingly volunteered their time (only in exchange for a free meal) to play background music. They were so good that when my husband walked through to pick up the kids, he thought it was a cd!


After they took the quiz we welcomed them and invited them to start on their salads (which were placed on the tables beforehand) and warm bread.

Here is the serving line with the food.

Here are some of the committee members slaving away. I stayed out of the kitchen as I was working on decorating and making sure everything was in order. Some of us ran around like chicken's with our heads cut off, especially right at the last minute when everything comes together. I think we all managed to be able to sit down for a few minutes to at least eat a little.

Here I am sharpening pencils beforehand after my ebay glitch. And I am thinner there too. What the?!!?!

Here are some of our cute servers. They really took their job to heart and were so willing and helpful. They kept our water filled and assisted the many elderly sisters in our ward by serving them their food directly so they didn't have to wait in line for their food.

The Menu. Rhonda came up with a delicious and fairly simple menu. We had a tight budget but wanted it to be delicious. She cooked most of it, hours before, herself. Alicia and Michelle helped in the kitchen as she instructed them.
We had two pastas. Regular spaghetti, with a nice meat marinara sauce. The second was a garlic cheese white sauce that she pre-mixed with pasta.
The salad was a copycat version of Olive Garden's.
She roasted garlic slices and mixed them with olive oil and herbs. We dipped our warm bread (from Costco, the Italian version) in this herbed oil spread.

We simplified our dessert by purchasing fresh mixed berry Gelato from our Costco cafe with a piece of biscotti. Simple, elegant, rich, unique, easy.


Marlene, our upbeat and funny speaker. Sadly, I couldn't listen to all of it but what I did gather was helpful.

It was a wonderful evening with few and simple decorations that made a strong impact, music to add to the ambiance, dimmed lights, delicious yet inexpensive food, a slow pace and the little details all added to a wonderful evening together. I know that each person was enriched by coming! Several said it was the best Church activity they had been to! That's the greatest compliment!

Thanks again to my committee and to Marianne for lending me your camera and taking some candid shots!