Earlier this month, J lost his first tooth. I knew it had been loose for about a week and I kept meaning to do something to prep for our first visit from the tooth fairy. But I never did. One night as I was reading him his bedtime stories, he just pulled it out. He was SO excited! He rushed downstairs to show B and immediately asked if he could keep it. So we scrounged around for something to put the tooth in (B found a plastic memory card case) and wrote a note to the tooth fairy asking if J could keep his tooth. The next morning J woke up to find a dollar squished into the case with his tooth. After he got over his disappointment over the fact the tooth fairy did not bring him a Lego set (I think he thought the tooth fairy was more like a female Santa Claus), he was excited.
Can you see the gap? It's down on the bottom and the new tooth is already poking up to fill it in.
Despite the fact that J was perfectly happy with his memory card case, I was not. So I bought some felt and went to work. I decided I wanted to make a tooth fairy envelope for J and my sister's two children. I wanted something that didn't take up too much room and something that wasn't too babyish since I know they will keep losing teeth until they are at least 10 or so.
First I enlarged a mini-envelope template and cut it out of paper. I traced it onto my three pieces of felt. For this black "snakeskin" felt I used for J's, a white crayon worked great.
Here is J's piece cut out along with the felt for my 6 year-old niece and 8 year-old nephew.
Next I drew a large tooth on a piece of paper, cut it out to make a template, and cut out three white felt teeth (one for each of the envelopes).
Next I pinned the tooth onto the middle of the front of the envelope. I found it easiest to fold the envelope up before pinning the tooth to better picture where it would go. The two smaller triangles are the side flaps, the large pointy corner is the bottom flap and the rounded corner is the top flap.
Next, I whip-stitched the tooth onto the envelope. I used bright contrasting colors for fun.
My nephew's envelope with his tooth all stitched on!
Next, I carefully folded down and pinned the side flaps.
And then carefully folded and pinned the bottom flap.
Then I whip-stitched the bottom flap onto the two sides. I started in the bottom right corner and worked my way around. I did decorative whip-stitch around the top corner of the flap because I thought it looked nicer than just carrying the thread across before heading down the other side. You could also, cut and tie the thread at the top of the right side and start a fresh thread on the left side if you don't want to do this.
Next I added the snaps. I did the top part of the snap first and then folded and pushed it down so it left an indentation where the bottom part of the snap needed to be attached.
The backs of the three envelopes.
The fronts of the three envelopes.
I really wanted to make something that would be convenient to use and, as I mentioned, not too babyish. I think these fit the bill. These envelopes are flat (so easy to put under pillows), but big enough (approximately 4" x 5.5") that they can hold notes, money, teeth and not get lost.
Here's a template I made if you want to use it. Just print it as a full page photo. Make sure your program doesn't try to fit it to the page and crop off the edges.
That's my little bit of craftiness to share. Sorry for the poor quality photographs. Happy Monday, everyone!
