Fabric Fortune Cookies

I've been working on some new ideas for the Etsy store...something special for Valentine's Day. At the quilt shop, we used these last year for door prizes at our customer appreciation party. The fortunes hidden inside revealed a special gift for each recipient. I wanted to try for a more romantic version this year. These are really easy to make and involve no sewing. Each cookie has an inside and outside so choose two fabrics for each. This is a great way to use some of your fabric stash and is also perfect for those 5" charm squares. My 20-year-old daughter helped me with these so she chose the fabric we would use.
The first step is to fuse the two fabrics together using a two-sided fusible web product. I use Steam-a-Seam 2 light. It comes in lots of sizes. I used about a half yard of the 24" wide and four different pairs of fabric. Follow the product instructions to fuse the fabrics together. Once the fabrics are fused together, trace circles onto one side. I cut a 3 1/4" circle from a piece of heavy template plastic. No special marking tool is needed. A ball point pen works great. Trace as many circles as will fit on your fabric.
Use scissors to cut the circles out. The action of cutting the two fused pieces of fabric helps seal the edges for a better bond.The next step is to fold the circles in half and fuse just the edge together. I used Steam-a-Seam 2 light for this step as well. It only takes a small rectangle to hold the cookie together.

Here is what they will look like once the folded cookie is bonded. There is no need to create a crease or hard fold. The goal is to attach the edges so that the cookie is a semi-circle.The next step is to make the final fold into a fortune cookie. To fold the cookie, insert your index fingers in each end. Put your thumbs in the center and pull the ends together.

Use a paperclip or clothes pin to hold the cookie together. This will also serve as a good handle while you are painting them. In order for the cookies to last, they need to be coated with a fabric stiffener. I use Stiffy, but there are plenty of similar products around. You can also use watered down Elmer's glue.

The cookies need drying time. I inserted straight pins around a styrofoam bowl and hung the paperclip around the pin. They could be hung from a string to dry as well.While they are drying (which takes a couple of hours), it's time to think about what will be written on the fortunes. I stuck with basic Valentine's Day sayings, like "XXOO", "Be Mine", and "All You Need is Love". My daughter suggested that it would be fun to just put one letter on each fortune and have the recipient figure out the message.

I'm off to find some Chinese takeout boxes to hold the cookies. I'll show the final product when we're done.