A Review of Tutorials for Valentine Fortune Cookies

Well, I saw this on Martha Stewart and thought it was cute. But really Martha, glue and felt? I just think that wouldn't hold together very well. At least not with a bunch of 1st graders.

I did a search. I KNOW I've seen them in other places. I found some awesome tuts that I totally loved and had to try myself. Brassy Apple had basically the same idea with glue. I like the additional layer of fabric. But we are talking glue again. I must have a thing against glue. And when we are talking glue and fabric you just totally turn me off.

Here is one that uses paper I love how she shows you how to fold it with a little pinch in it to make it look more like a fortune cookie.

And then there is this one from CraftSanity I think it is adorable and I really like the tutorial.

Last but not least, I found Lady harvatine had a tutorial on making fabric fortune cookies.

I guess I should say that I want to do them for Super Boy's Valentines for his class this year. He is in 1st grade. So my criteria is that it has to be something that can be very quickly made, it has to hold up in their Valentine boxes or bags. These 1st graders can be less than careful when they are excited. I want to put a strip of wrapped licorice and a note in them and not have the fall out. I think that is about it.

I took my favorite parts of these tutorials and tried three of them out, with my own twists, of course.

I have a ton of red felt. I'm in love with felt. I dream about felt creations at night. I love to sew with felt. I know, it is a sickness. But I'm not ready to seek help for it just yet;) I started with felt circles.

Here are my three attempts. The first one was based on CraftSanity's tutorial. There is a PDF tutorial you can download. If I were going to make play fortune cookies, this is the one I would choose. I loved it, but thought it had too many steps for a simple class Valentine. Seriously a lot of thoughtful design in this one. I would not have come up with this on my own.

The next one was based off Martha's and Brassy Apple. I just didn't like that it was glued. So I took a strip of floral wire and sewed a little strip of felt around the wire. I liked this but felt like it created a lot of bulk and the shape just wasn't quite right. I did like that it seemed to hold it's shape well. And this was my second favorite way. I just need to make the strip a little more narrow, if I were to use it.

This was from Lady Harvatine. I think I ended up liking this one best for my use. She sewed it and that is a plus for me;) I love sewing with felt. How many times can I say that?

Of course I had to do it my way by only using one layer of fabric and not pinking the edges. I like this one because it seemed to hold it's shape best. I'm going to put individually wrapped licorice and notes in them and I thought this would hold the best when shoved into 1st grader's buckets. It was quite easy. All you do is sew down about an inch on a folded circle. I did not sew quite as far into the center as she did because I wanted there to be enough room for the stuff I'm going to put in it. I did have to think about it a little to figure how to fold it. I couldn't come up with a better explanation than she had.

I like the idea of putting a Kiss inside. But I didn't find the size I made would be big enough. I used a large tumbler to draw the circles. I would have to use a small plate to make bigger circles. I don't know that I want to use that much fabric. I know that is silly. Oh and here is a reference for fortune cookie sayings
~Anjeanette