Simple felt Valentine's Day gift bags

I enjoy sewing, and so it's only natural that I'd like to encourage the hobby in my children too! There are lots of first simple sewing projects that you can try with children, and so I thought we'd make some little felt gift bags for holding Valentine's Day treats which can be reused from year to year.

Felt is a brilliant fabric to start sewing with children as it doesn't need hemming and you can use a larger, blunter needle which is easier for young children to work with. It's also thick and sturdy for them to hold comfortably.

Another advantage of using felt for crafting is that you can easily add embellishments and other decorations to it using fabric glue.

Instructions:

An A4 sized sheet of felt will make two gift bags. First fold your felt sheet in half lengthwise to create two long rectangles. Fold the rectangle in half from the bottom, and sew down each side to make the bag. We just used a simple running stitch in a contrasting colour, as I quite like the look of having the stitches visible. An older child might like to use a back stitch, and then turn the bag inside out so that the stitches are hidden and it all looks a bit neater.

Harry used a thick cotton thread to do the sewing and reasonably sharp needle, under supervision of course. I think that he did pretty well considering that he's only just 5! For a younger child you could make the holes for them in advance and let them use a larger, blunt needle to sew up the sides. Or you could sew up the bag yourself and provide them with materials to decorate.

We decorated the bag using coloured buttons and heart shaped pieces of felt. You could also add a name or initials to make it more personal for the recipient. We just glued the decorations on using fabric glue, but you could of course sew the decorations on to make the bag a little more hard wearing.

Fill the bag with small Valentine's sweets, and then use some pretty ribbon to tie the top closed. Something like this would also make a sweet little wedding or party favour.

If you like this idea you might also be interested in some other ways to present gifts on Valentine's Day