MUR-MAN'S FELT TOOL BELT!

Posted by Ethne~

Lori and I debated on birthday gifts for Mur-Man.  Last year I got him an Elf on the Shelf (Stan) for a birthday/Christmas gift.  This year I wanted it to be a toy, and I wanted it to be homemade.  Naturally, we turned to Pinterest and Lori found a ton of ideas – one of which was a felt tool belt with felt tools.  Perfect!

I had all the required items:

Multiple colors of felt

Thread/embroidery floss

Puffy paint

Craft/fabric glue such as Fabri-Tac (my favorite)

Sewing machine*

*Sewing machine not required since these could be hand-stitched, but I went for easy and quick – squeezing crafts into weekends is a lot of work with the monsters running around with endless energy; like I always say, we wouldn’t need foreign oil or offshore drilling if only we could tap KD and Easy Mac’s energy.

First I selected a tan piece of 8½” by 11” felt.  I figured that resembled the color of a leather tool belt.  On one long side I cut circular scoops out of the corners on one of the long sides of the felt rectangle.  The remaining center piece had to be big enough once folded down that a 1” piece of belting or ribbon could slide through it.  Stitch the folded edge to make the belt loop.

I did a simple straight stitch around the edges of these pieces (1/4" seam)
so it will keep its shape - felt can stretch out with use

With another piece of tan felt, I cut an approximately 5” by 11” rectangle and sewed that to the front of the first piece on the bottom end of the original rectangle.  Then I sewed lines down to make the length-wise pockets for each tool.

The next step required some input from Shaun since I am not a tool-wielding kind of gal – that’s what my manly hubby is for!  I had him sketch tools out onto various colors of felt.  A couple of wrenches, a screwdriver and the hammerhead were made out of gray felt.  I cut two pieces of each, sewed them together (I stuffed them with fiber-fill before closing the pieces entirely).

I made the handle for the hammer out of black felt that I glued onto a pencil.  I stuck the hammerhead onto the pencil handle and glued them really well – I covered the seam with a piece of red felt glued on.

I made a handle for the screwdriver by wrapping a broken crayon with some fiber-fill and red felt.

Finally, I made a ruler out of ivory felt – again double-sided so it would have some heft to it and not be too floppy.  I sewed the inch tick-marks on there and puffy painted the numbers.

You could make about any tools you want to, these were just the suggestions from the hubby.

To make it cute, I cut out ‘M’ ‘P’ and ‘L’ from felt because those are Mur-Man’s initials, and turned it into a construction company (using black puffy paint).  And I couldn’t help but make an Angry Bird logo since that was the theme for his 2^nd birthday party.  It turned out SOOOOO cute.

For the belt, I found some red belting material.  When I got to Lori’s little city, ND, for the party, we measured Murray’s waist and sewed on a few pieces of Velcro so it would stay on his waist.

KD and Easy Mac picked out Mur-Man's birthday outfit

DONE!  Super cute!  And no cost to me!  Now Mur-Man can help Steve with every home improvement project. J