DIY Classroom Chair Buddies Under $75!

I'm obsessed with decorating and organizing my classroom, so naturally when the idea of making my own seat buddies came along, I couldn't resist. Here is my quick tutorial on how I made mine, and how you can make your own! Mine came out lovely, and I made 24 for around the cost of $75 (and some elbow grease)!

** Make any and all adjustments you need as you go, they're going to come out great!**

Materials needed: - One 9x12 ft canvas drop cloth
- About 9 yards of your choice of patterned/colored fabric
- 1" wide elastic (I used 4 rolls)
- Good scissors
- Measuring tape
- Hefty spool of thread
- Heavy duty machine needles
- Pins
- Iron & board

1. Purchase a 9x12 ft canvas drop cloth, I got mine from Home Depot for around $20.
2. Purchase about 9 yards of your desired fabric. I chose a black and white small chevron print, and with a 60% off coupon mine cost about $30 from Joanne's. 

3. Lay out the fabric, measure and cut 15" x 36" rectangles. This part doesn't have to be perfect!! I obsessed a little too much about cutting straight and exact, but if you're ballpark you'll be fine! Promise ;) I cut as many as I could given the amount of fabric. 

4. Repeat this process with the canvas. Tired yet? I was sweating by this point.
5. Break out the sewing machine! Grab one piece of patterned fabric and one peice of canvas. Choose the sides you like best of the fabrics, then align the two pieces together, face to face. Iron them together. 

 

6. Sew 3 of those sides together using a single stitch, double over the stitch on the corners. You still shouldn't be able to see the good sides of the fabric. 

7. Flip the fabric right-side out. Iron this piece again, especially focusing on getting the corners nice and flat.

8. Fold in the edges of the final open side. Iron those pieces down as well. 

9. Sew closed the final side of the fabric. Double over the stitch on the corners. 

10. Repeat these steps on all remaining fabric pieces! You should end up with a big stack of sewed up, flat rectangles, one side canvas, one side your pretty fabric!

     

*Good time to take a break here... I know I needed one!*

11. Now, fold all your pieces of fabric in the form they will fit over your chairs. Make your outside pocket as deep as you prefer. Mine were about 10" deep, with about a 4" gap of canvas above.

12. Cut 3-4" pieces of elastic, you'll need 4 for each seat buddy. That's a lot of elastic.
13. Pin and sew in the elastic into the front pocket. I reinforced the elastics by stitching 7-10 times over each. I don't want them to rip! This is the easy part.
14. Align, pin, and creatively sew the elastic to the back of the buddy. Reinforce this side 7-10 times as you did I  step 13. It took me a while to get a system down, but eventually I did!

Once all elastics are sewed in, you should have some lovely seat buddies, and all for about $75! Good luck! :) If you follow this tutorial, let me know how yours turned out! Thanks for reading!