Crochet Pattern: Valentine's Envelope

I wanted to make my 10-year-old son a cute little Valentine this year. We started homeschooling a couple years ago and he misses getting a Valentine from all of his classmates. Last year, I roped my husband into helping me make a couple Valentine’s for him, along with one I printed off from an email my Dad sent me. I think we did alright. So, this year, we’re going a step further and adding some little gifts in with the regular Valentine’s.

The first thing I made was this cute envelope that he can use over and over again.

Materials:
-worsted weight yarn (in 2 colors- a main color and an accent color; I used Big Twist Varsity Navy for my main color and a light grey/silver)
-4mm/G hook
-yarn needle
-small piece of velcro

Pattern:
Using your main color, ch 35.
Row 1: sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc across (34)
Row 2-30: ch 1, sc across (34)
Row 31: ch 1, sc in blo across (34)
Row 32-64: ch 1, sc across (34)
Row 65: ch 1, sc in blo across (34)
Row 66: ch 1, sc across (34)
Row 67: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 30, sc2tog (32)
Row 68: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 28, sc2tog (30)
Row 69: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 26, sc2tog (28)
Row 70: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 24, sc2tog (26)
Row 71: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 22, sc2tog (24)
Row 72: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 20, sc2tog (22)
Row 73: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 18, sc2tog (20)
Row 74: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 16, sc2tog (18)
Row 75: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 14, sc2tog (16)
Row 76: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 12, sc2tog (14)
Row 77: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 10, sc2tog (12)
Row 78: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 8, sc2tog (10)
Row 79: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 6, sc2tog (8)
Row 80: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 4, sc2tog (6)
Row 81: ch 1, sc2tog, sc x 2, sc2tog (4)
Row 82: ch 1, sc2tog, sc2tog (2)
Row 83: ch 1, sc2tog (1)
Sc around the outside. Sc, ch, sc in each corner.
Finish off and weave in ends.

Assembly:
Fold the rectangle end of your piece at row 31. Since you worked into the back loops, your piece should naturally fold here. Using your yarn needle and main color, sew the sides together.

I used hot glue to attach my velcro, but feel free to attach it in any way that you want. I first glued one side of the velcro in place on the flap at the top. Then, while the two pieces of velcro were still attached to each other, I put hot glue on the side that wasn’t attached and folded it down in place, and glued that piece. This ensures that the velcro will be positioned exactly where you want it to be and everything will line up correctly.

To add extra details, I used my accent yarn to sew around the outside of the letter as shown below.

Then, I added a couple lines in the middle where you would write an address.

The last detail I added was a stamp in the corner. If you want to make this more “Valentine-y” you could make your stamp a heart, but I just wanted this to be a cute letter.
Stamp Pattern:
Ch 6
Row 1: sc in the 2nd ch from the hook, sc across (5)
Row 2-7: ch 1, sc across (5)
Outside: (starting as though you’re doing Row 8) ch 1, hdc, sl st, ch, hdc, sl st, ch, hdc, ch, hdc (working along the side), sl st, ch, hdc, sl st, ch, hdc, sl st, ch, hdc, ch, hdc (working along the bottom), sl st, ch, hdc, sl st, ch, hdc, ch, hdc (working along the other side), sl st, ch, hdc, sl st, ch, hdc, sl st, ch, hdc, sl st to top of first hdc.
Finish off, leaving a long enough tail to sew onto envelope.

Sew stamp onto envelope in the top right corner.

NYC Trip: Brooklyn

    This past December (I know, a lifetime ago), my family went on a trip to New York City for my 30th birthday. It was so much fun. I had always wanted to go to New York, but was kind of nervous because everything is super expensive, it's easy to get lost, bad things happen to tourists, etc. Well, it turned out, there was nothing to be nervous about at all. We mostly stayed in Manhattan, but one morning, we decided to spend a little time in Brooklyn. Here's how our day went.

Around 10am, we took a cab that dropped us off in the Fulton Ferry District. We weren't 100% sure what we wanted to do yet, so we just had our cab drop us off so that we could walk around. We ended up walking over to the corner of Washington St and Water St to get that iconic photo of the Manhattan Bridge. You know you've seen it. It's been in shows, movies, commercials, every person's Instagram. It was a beautiful spot to get pictures, but there were TONS of people there. I'm guessing that if you want to get pictures with little to no people in them, you'll have to get there super early in the morning.

After a couple minutes, we decided to walk down the street to Main Street Park. That's where we found this great little rocky beach area to take pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. It was surprisingly peaceful so we sat and chilled there for a while. 

We didn't have a lot for breakfast, so around 11am, we started our walk over to Old Fulton St. Now, the entire reason we came to Brooklyn was to get some iconic pizza! Our first instinct was to go to Grimaldi's, but after some research, we learned the owner of Juliana's was actually the original owner of Grimaldi's before selling it. So, we chose to eat at Juliana's. We did stand in line for about 20 minutes before it opened, but we were seated immediately, ordered soon after, and had our pizza within 10 minutes. O-M-G that pizza was good. We're from Illinois so my husband is a huge deep-dish fan, but I prefer that thin, foldable, delicious, wood-fired pizza. You may wait in line, but this pizza is so worth it. I'm sure people that live in New York City have other places that they prefer, but Juliana's really lived up to the hype for me.

By this time, it was after noon. We were extremely close to the pedestrian entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge so we decided to walk across it. I had read that the views were beautiful and they definitely didn't disappoint. There are a few benches along the way if you need a break or just want a place to step to the side for a picture. We stopped multiple times so our casual stroll across the bridge took about half an hour.

In all, we spent less than 3 hours in Brooklyn, but we had tons of fun while we were there and we won't hesitate to go back.