Can you believe we’re up to day 12 already? Here’s a great one if you have children, perhaps as the final gift in an advent calendar. Or you could start a more grown-up tradition and write an end-of-year letter to your spouse, thanking them for their love and support throughout the year.

Don’t forget to leave milk and cookies a beer out for the big man in red.

You will need:

• sheet of felt
• white or cream linen fabric
• contrasting patterned fabric (I used seersucker)
• ruler
• black and red felt-tip pens
• scissors
• pinking shears
• needle
• thread
• embroidery floss
• button

Instructions

1. Mark out on the length of the felt two-fifths and four-fifths.

2. Mark the halfway point of the short edge of the felt and draw lines from there to the four-fifths points.

3. Cut the flap of the envelope, careful to cut inside the lines so they won’t be visible on the final product.

4. Fold over the bottom two-fifths to make the body of the envelope.

5. Starting from one bottom coner, stitch up the side using embroidery floss.

6. Continue up the flap of the envelope (purely for decorative reasons) then back down the other side. Tie off and trim excess thread.

7. Sew on a contrasting coloured button to the point of the flap. (Mine is just for embellishment, but if you’re handier than me with a sewing machine you can add a buttonhole.)

8. Cut a small rectangle from your patterned fabric, using pinking shears to achieve a similar look to perforated postage stamps.

9. Sew on the postage stamp. Note: in hindsight it would have been much easier to do this step prior to sewing up the sides of the envelope!

10. Tie off and trim excess thread.

11. Draw details onto the front of the envelope, such as stamp price, postmarks and address.

12. Cut a piece of linen to the size of inside of the envelope and write your letter to Santa.

Tell me, what are you hoping Santa will bring you this year?