So this week I had to do something quick and easy.  We spent most of the last week in New York doing our annual apple picking.  It was a beautiful weekend and we had a great time.  (I’ll post some pictures at the end of this)  Needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of time to put something together so I searched through my pinterest boards to find some inspiration.  This is the little number I came across.

You can click here for a great tutorial on how to make these.  I thought these would be a great gift for little ones.  They were super easy.  It only took me about an hour to make one and now that I know how to do it, I could probably get several done in an hour.

In the tutorial they mention that they used real wool felt.  Since I had a stack of synthetic felt, that is what I used.

I ran to the dollar store and picked up some cute little top spiral bound notebooks and some crayons.  Then I set out to make these puppies.  I must admit here that I am not always good at reading through instructions.  Especially if there are pictures and it seems pretty straight forward and easy.  So….there are a few differences in my project and the one in the tutorial.  Because I didn’t read through everything first, I had to make this a tad bigger because of the size of the notebooks I got but it was no big deal.  (Also, I didn’t realize until I got home that the crayons I bought were slightly larger than regular crayons…in the end I was okay with that since I was making it for little fingers)  Also, in the tutorial, they only use one layer of felt for the tab.  I decided to use double thickness using the inside and outside felt.  Felt can tear after repeated pulling and wear so I wanted it to be a little sturdier.

And the finished product…..

Rather than machine stitch the star on the front, I decided to give it a more primitive look so  I used a running stitch with 6 strands of embroidery thread.  I thought this would be a great Christmas present for the little 5 year olds I teach at church.  I wanted to embroider there names on them but decided that might not be a good idea if I make these in different colors.  I’m sure they would be upset if they didn’t get a color they wanted and they wouldn’t be able to trade if their names were on it.  I’ll leave the personalization for the grandkids.  Shhh ….don’t tell them.

Another project done!  Time to move on to another one!

(And as promised, some pictures from apple picking in New York)