I am happy to report that– despite missing all my kids home at the same time– we are settling into a routine now that school has started. My goal is to keep up on the housework, trying to get it all done during the day so by the time she gets home, we’re prepared to do our after school chores, homework, dinner, and have quality time together. Those 4-5 hours after school until bedtime go by way too quickly! One of the things we did to prepare her going back to school was by having a Back to School Celebration. You can check out our detailed Celebration from last year. This year’s was a little less organized, and spread over 3 nights, since we had just returned from a vacation the day before school started!

Check out the picture of the red felt. That’s what this post is about today. We actually “rolled out the red carpet” for a fashion show so she could model all her new school clothes for us. It was so cute!

This post is more about the idea than it is the tutorial. I came up with this idea one night while mentally planning out our Back to School Celebration, and I knew it would be such a fun detail. The red carpet was easier to make than I had planned! This is going to be such a fun tradition in our house for years and years!

Here’s what I did: 

I purchased 2 yards of red felt. I found it at Wal-Mart, I can’t remember the exact price, but I’m pretty sure it was under $10.

I cut it along the fold.

Then I placed the 2 short ends together, which makes the carpet twice as long. I sewed a simple seam right sides together, and that’s it! If you don’t sew, you could hot glue them together, or just leave it un-sewn and lay the carpet out like this.

Roll it up and save it for next year’s fashion show!

What special things do you do to ring in the school year?