A Fun Felt Children's Art Wallet for Eileen Hull Designs

Hi everyone and welcome! Some long while back I had fun creating a fun felt children's art wallet using Eileen Hull Designs 'Journal' Die. Having been asked whether it would be possible to make a cover that didn't require a stiff base like mount/matboard this seemed the perfect opportunity to put the die to the test. Subsequently journals cut from file folders, place mats and so much more have been shared in Eileen Hull's facebook group HERE.

Felt alone is too floppy to hold pages etc so I began by cutting a front and back cover from Sizzix Paper Leather. It's tough yet light and flexible and you can even stitch through it! In this case I also cut a front and back cover from the light blue felt - Eileen's Scoreboard Dies cut felt beautifully. Having glued together the central spines on the Paper Leather cuts I trimmed away one fold on the back felt piece before gluing the two felt cuts onto the Paper Leather cover. To add some fun to the cover I cut 'Splatter' using the Sizzix Thinlits Dies of the same name from contrasting felt  to glue all over it - to ensure your Thinlits dies cut felt easily try using a piece of copier paper in between the felt/die sandwich. Finally some 2mm white elastic was strung through the holes in the spine as directed on the Journal Die cover, including a loop to hold it closed. The rigidity of the Paper Leather helped to prevent the spine from buckling - make sure not to tie the ends too tightly to stop this from happening.

Moving to the inside of this soft yet sturdy art wallet I wanted to add spaces in which to tuck stickers, rulers with cut out stencils and coloured pencils. I went to the effort of measuring and cutting pockets from white card (decorated with more Splatters) to the same size as the pencil packaging, which was in truth a little fiddly. However, Eileen is coming to my rescue in the not too distant future - included in the Eileen Hull Designs 'Book Club release' this December is a new Scoreboards Large Die called 'Stamp & Photo Storage'. The die cuts you a pocket that measures 6 1/8" x 4 1/8" x 1/2" the perfect size for attaching to the inside covers of the Journal. And the added bonus I found with my pockets is that they add even more rigidity to the covers. To complete this art wallet I cut and folded plain pieces of watercolour paper ready and waiting for little fingers to decorate.

Here's the back cover in all it's multi-coloured glory. It's so tactile and invites you to dive on inside to play with the contents!

I hope you feel inspired to create something for your budding artists on the go, and don't forget to keep a look out for that Stamp & Photo Storage Die. The fiddly job of measuring and cutting pockets will be a thing of the past!

Thank you for joining me today. I'll be back on Wednesday to reveal a brand new canvas. Until then take care of yourselves and get creative! Jenny xxx