Tutorial: Simple Felt Clutch

Hi, Everyone! I'm really excited to be the Design Team Member hosting this week's "Show Me Sunday" tutorial over at Frosted Designs! The tutorial I am sharing, (both on the Frosted Designs website as well as here), teaches you how to whip up a super cute felt clutch in just a matter of minutes. These are great little accessories to carry in your purse to discretely hold "unmentionables". They also make terrific/inexpensive gifts for friends and co-workers...just add pens, pencils, markers, notepads, candy...the skies the limit! Here are the supplies you'll need for this project:

• 9" x 12" piece of felt for clutch (I used hot pink)
• Scraps of felt for flower (I used baby pink, yellow, and lime green)
• Embroidery floss (I used black and green)
• Tiny piece of fiberfill
• Velcro
• Scissors
• Any other decorative trim that you'd like to add (I ended up not using the rick-rack on this clutch)

Begin by folding the bottom of the short side of the felt upward to form a 4 1/4" pocket. Fold the top down 3 1/4" so that the top overlaps the bottom of the clutch. Press to hold folds in place.

Using a blanket stitch; stitch around the outside edges of the clutch and across the top edge of the inside of the pocket with six strands of embroidery floss.

Not sure how to do a blanket stitch? It's an easy stitch that adds a wonderful, finished look to all kinds of projects! Here's a simple diagram to show you how:

Your stitched clutch should now look like this:

To create the felt flower, loosely draw two flowers on a piece of felt. You'll also need to draw an oval on a piece of yellow felt for the center of the flower:

Cut the pieces out and layer them. Add a tiny piece of fiberfill batting under the yellow oval to give it a slight "puffy" effect. Using two strands of embroidery floss, stitch the layers together in the flower's center, tucking under the yellow edges and catching them with the running stitches as you go:

Cut two leaf shapes from green felt, and stitch "veins" on the leaves with a slightly darker green embroidery floss. Carefully gather the bottom of the leaves to add a little more detail, and then stitch the leaves to the underside of the felt flower:

Carefully tack the felt flower to the top flap of the clutch. Attach an adhesive-backed Velcro circle to the underside of the flap to hide the stitching where you attached the flower:

Your cute felt clutch is now complete!

A few variations can easily be made to this project. You can cut the felt in half or into thirds to make smaller clutches. Also, you can divide the pockets into two or more sections by stitching up from the bottom. A ribbon handle or strap can be attached to the underside of the flap to create an adorable purse for a little girl. Lastly, by slightly adjusting the size of the clutch, you can create a cover for a plastic travel baby wipe case...a cute accessory for a girly diaper bag!

On a final note, if you haven't taken the opportunity to check out the Frosted Designs website, I HIGHLY recommend that you do so! I just KNOW that you will be totally inspired and will come away with some fabulous crafty ideas! Once you've browsed their site and taken in all of the fantastic ideas there, you'll see why I feel so honored and privileged to be one of their new Design Team Members, and to be able to collaborate with the other amazingly talented DT members there!

Thanks so much for letting me share this project with you! I hope that you will enjoy making and giving these to the special ladies in your life! Have a WONDERFUL week!

Happy crafting!