Make it on a Monday: Felt Box

This is the first edition of Make it on a Monday, I hope you like it!

I have a love of felt - you can make loads of things with it, its easy to work with, cheap (although 100% wool felt can be expensive) and you can get it in a million different colours. I was reading Simply Homemade, a new craft magazine and fell in love with a felt and fabric sewing box. As I don't need a sewing box and didn't want to use any fabric (I have a limited selection) I decided to make a small felt trinket box.

I haven't actually made the "proper" box yet, but I made a trail run one out of some scraps of felt, I didn't want to go using the new felt I bought if I ended up not being able to make the box properly or I wasn't happy with it. Thankfully, I'm very happy with it and cant wait to make the "proper" one! The below picture is the felt I will be using to make the box, plus ric rac, ribbon and buttons I will be using to decorating it. The felt and ric rac was ordered from Paper-and-String, I cant tell you how pleased I was with my order and the service!

So, onto making it!

You will need:

12 5inch squares of felt (or whatever size you wish, keeping it square makes it easier)
8 4inch by 1.5 inch strips of felt
12 5inch squares of stiff cardboard (you will need to trim them to fit)
Thread
Needle
Decorations (if you want)

Firstly, sew on any decorations to the panels that you want to add. Then sew together two panels along three sides, continue with the rest of the panels until you end up with 6 panels, each with three sides sewn up. I used blanket stitch on mine but you can use whatever stitch you prefer. Slide in the cardboard into each panel and sew the opening closed. Sew the smaller strips in the same way, without adding the cardboard, these will form the lip of the lid.

Now, starting with the base, sew the panel edges together to create a topless box. Again, I used blanket stitch but you can use whatever stitch you prefer. Do the same with the lid, sewing the strips along the edges of the lid.

You should, if I've written at least marginally useful instructions, end up with something like this -