Makin' It Monday-Appliqued Backpack

Mr. E, as you know from previous posts, has started to preschool.  He was required to have a backpack to take to school that had his name on it.  We already had a backpack that I bought at a yard sale a year ago.  This used to be our church bag. 

Mr. E, Miss C, and I took a trip Hobby Lobby so Mr. E could pick out the color felt he wanted for his name.  He went with yellow.  He wanted to do gray, but thankfully I was able to talk him out of that.  Next, I picked out the orange crochet thread to attach/accent Mr. E's name.

I decided to bust out the ol' Cricut and get busy!!  I cut test letters with my George cartridge to make sure I had the correct size.   Next, I put some wonder under on my felt.  Then I tried cutting the letters in the felt.  I say tried because something wasn't right with the depth of my blade and the felt didn't get cut all the way through.  No worries, the blade did trace the letters nicely onto the felt so I just cut the letters out with my scissors.  The letters aren't perfect, but hey it is for a 3 year old...and one that doesn't really care how neat his name is cut out. 

After ironing the letters in place I just stitched them on with the thread.

When I bought the bag it was obvious that it had been used as a preschool bag before....there was old tape residue on the from flap where someone else's name was on the bag.  I used an extra piece of felt, one of the original buttons...I forgot to mention that I had to replace the strap buttons because one was missing when I bought the bag...and made a little moving dump truck on the front as well.  This gives Mr. E something to play with on the ride to school! 

Here is the finished product!

Mr. E loves it and that is all that matter.

Happy Crafting!!