how to save the earth and look super cute at the same time.

A while back I got an itch to sew (I wish it was an itch to stitch so it would rhyme!) and I decided that a re-usable coffee sleeve was just the quick project I needed for almost instant gratification!

I went to Starbucks for inspiration in the form of a tall, vanilla, soy, no foam latte. Yumm... I also needed a coffee sleeve to use as a prototype. When I got home I took the sleeve apart, traced it onto the back of a cardboard cereal box and added half an inch to each of the four sides. Then with a pair of scissors, I cut the mother out!

See? Cereal box. And Raisin Bran from Trader Joe's, no less. Yummm...

I decided that I wanted this coffee sleeve to be reversible so I went through my fabric stash and picked out a fun elephant fabric along with a red and white fabric which I thought would coordinate nicely with it. I laid my cereal box template on each piece of fabric, traced it and then cut. Ridiculously easy.

I felt like just two pieces of cotton fabric wouldn't be thick enough for my liking so I also cut a piece of fusible interfacing and ironed that to the red and white fabric. After that I stacked it all together, first the elephants (right side up) then the red and white fabric with the interfacing (wrong side down) and went to town sewing all together except for one end. I flipped the sucker inside out so that it was now right side out, used a crochet hook to poke the corners out from the inside and sewed up the remaining side. Final step- I attached a piece of velcro to each end to secure the sleeve around a coffee mug.
This project was so fun and SO simple! My little friend, Kimbo, has a special fondness for elephants so I gave her this coffee sleeve as a prize.

So, if you're looking for an opportunity to sew something fun that won't take very long then this is totally the project for you. Oh, and you'll save the earth too- and look cute while doing so. :)