Make a Valentine’s Day Chair Backer

What do you like to do to make Valentine’s Day special for your family?  My sister sent me a link to a Pottery Barn chair backer, and I thought, I can make that!  And I made it for more like $3, rather than the $24 it’s selling for at Pottery Barn!

I had never seen this idea before, but I think it’s so cute for kids!  It’s basically an over-sized, felt envelope that straps to the back of a chair where you can leave all your little Valentine notes and treats.

You remember those Easy Valentine’s Day Candy Crafts that I made the other day?  Well, this is the treat bag that I wanted to make to put them in for Leah.

How to Make a Valentine’s Day Chair Backer

What you’ll need to make a Valentine’s Day chair backer:

• 3 sheets of white felt
• a small scrap of pink felt
• pink and white thread
• white skinny ribbon
• pink wide ribbon
• self adhesive velcro

Start by cutting out the flap for the envelope.  I had to cut mine twice because I made it too small the first time.  It should dip down below the middle of the envelope, so make sure you go past the half way point of the felt. 

Cut out two identical pink felt hearts.

Cut out a little bit from the top of one of the felt pieces.  This will be the opening at the front of the envelope.

Sew together the front and the back of the envelope.  I also sewed thin ribbon all the way around the envelope as I went.

Sorry this photo isn’t clear.  I made this at night while the kids were sleeping and the lighting wasn’t very good.  This is the two pieces of felt sewn together with an opening left at the top.

Sew the ribbon onto the bottom two edges of the envelop flap. Don’t sew on the top ribbon yet.

I found a fancy heart stitch on my sewing machine and I sewed that all the way around the envelope in pink thread.  It looks like Pottery Barn uses hand stitching for this, but my hand stitching was just way too uneven to make it look good.

If you have any kind off fancy stitch on your sewing machine, this is one of the few opportunities where it is appropriate to use it!  Valentine’s Day is all about being cheesy!

Don’t worry too much about the point on the envelope flap.  It will get covered up by the hearts.

Sew the hearts onto the envelope flap, with the hearts sandwiching the white felt in between.

Cut out two pieces of wide ribbon to use for the straps.  Mine were about 17″ long, but our chairs have a wide top that they had to go over.

Fold the ribbon in half, and cut one side about 3″ from the fold.  If you cut it right at the fold, the velcro will be on the top edge of your chair, and I didn’t want that.

My ribbon frayed a lot, so I folded it under and folded it again:

And then sewed the edge in place.  Then sewed near the fold so that it lays flat:

Attach the self adhesive velcro to the straps:

Place the straps on top of the back piece of white felt.  You can’t really see it here, but it’s two layers of ribbon at each strap:

Pin the envelope flap over top of the straps with the white ribbon over top and sew across the entire top edge:

And it should end up looking like this (in the dark with bad lighting):

It’s cheesy, but it looks pretty cute on the chair, I’ve got to admit:

I will not be spending $24 on a chair backer from Pottery Barn, thank you very much.  For the amount of use I will get out of it, I think this was $3 well spent!