Elf on the Shelf Sleeping Bag - Tutorial

Are you starting to struggle to come up with ideas for that pesky elf every single night??

Yeah me too.

So I decided that occasionally, our Elf, Tommy-Ted, could come home from his night time travels from the North Pole and go to bed like everyone else in the family. I stitched up a very quick little sleeping bag and some mornings the kids find him snoozing away in various locations around the house. Yeah, it's cheating a little bit but the girls think it's cool that he has his own bed.

You only need a few scraps to make this project, and it will take you about 15-20 minutes. This tutorial could be easily adapted to suit any doll.

Materials:
- Two strips of Christmas fabric 6.5" wide x 21" long (16.5cm x 53.5cm)
- One strip of cotton batting (or an alternative like polar fleece or flannel), same size as above.
- Sewing machine, thread, rotary cutter, mat etc.

You can see that I pieced one of my strips together from smaller scraps.

1. This part is optional - I placed my exterior panel together with the batting and sewed some quilting lines through it. 'Cause I'm a nerd like that ;)

If you are not quilting, place your exterior fabric together with your batting against the wrong side, and treat them as a single piece.

2. Place the fabric strips right sides together and stitch all the way around, leaving a small gap for turning in one short side.

3. Clip corners, turn inside out and press. Topstitch along the short side to close turning gap.

4. You will have one long strip. Fold one end over to form the sleeping bag shape. Line your elf up next to it to make sure it's the correct size.

5. Topstitch up the sides (as shown by the yellow lines) to finish the sleeping bag.

And that's it! Pop your elf inside and give yourself a night off from setting up some elaborate Elf on the Shelf scenario! Phew...all those Pinterest ideas can actually make Elf on the Shelf a bit stressful.

This little sleeping bag is also a handy dust cover for when Elf on the Shelf is packed away with all the other Christmas stuff is spending the rest of the year with Santa and his other Elf buddies in the North Pole.

You could certainly make it a little more fancy by making a pillow, or using bias binding for some lovely neat edges.

If you make an Elf Sleeping Bag using my tutorial, please share - I'd love to see it! Post it on my facebook page, tag me in your instagram pic or add it to my flickr group!