Chair Covers

One thing I worked on with my lovely mother (I am once again so thankful for her and her crafty ability) is making new chair covers for my classroom.  My first year of teaching I got hired late and came into a classroom with very little furniture.  One of the key missing items was cubbies (yikes!!).  Luckily one of my dear friends saved me and bought me chair covers as a "welcome to teaching gift".  After 3 years of having them they were pretty nasty and most had started ripping.  I asked my Mom if she would help me make new ones and she agreed!!

(Note: I have never sewn in my life while my Mom is an avid seamstress who regularly makes quilts to raise money for children in Africa! I'm not going to lie, it was 80% my Mom's doing and 20% me on a learning curve!! If you do not know how to sew or do not have a amazing seamstress Mother/friend like mine I would warn against trying to take on this project yourself!!)

We measured one of my old chair covers and found we needed 14'x54.5' of fabric for each chair cover (my classroom has little baby Kinder chairs so make sure to measure your own first).  We went to JoAnn's for the fabric and the plastic to house their name-tags  (we used a 50% off coupon plus they have 15% off your total purchase for teachers (bring your ID) which came out to be around $85 for all the fabric, plastic and thread that we needed).  

As you can also see from the diagram my Mom drew you have to cut the fabric then fold it back and forth to make the pocket to go over the chair and the other pocket to hold their belongings.  I would love to tell you all the details of how to do it exactly but I know I will skip a step! So, if you would like to know all the details for this project just email me any questions and I will have my Mom help me explain them to you :)

Here is how they look when they are done:

 I put my kiddos journals, small white-boards, sticker books, and other papers I want them to keep along with their name tags in these chair covers.  I LOVE them and am so thankful I have new ones to start the year off with.