Something good for a teacher!

My best friend is a teacher and she lives in Milan, therefore we don't see each other too much. For her birthday, I wanted to make something she could use everyday at school, so she would always be reminded of me... I'm getting too romantic but I guess that's because I really miss her...
After quite a few hours spent surfing the web, googling all type of keywords (I also typed "best friend tutorial"... and something really cute came out), I found this tutorial, from the blog Bits and Pieces, and knew instantly that it was what I had looking for all afternoon!!!
It's a file folder cover, perfect for keeping all the sheets a teacher usually has with her! And it's something she doesn't have yet! I'm sure of that!

So, as I am not a quilter nor I have supplies for quilting, I went for a beautiful fabric from Ikea (I bought it several years ago and never used because it was too beautiful) and a blue cotton muslin for the lining. It should have been stiffer but fusible interfacing is something unkwown to the lovely lady of the place where I usually buy my supplies. Her shop is really small and everything is covered by dust... she is not very modern but has some real treasures in her drawers and she has a lot of patience. Every time I have strange questions she always listens carefully and then comes up with a solution!
Getting back to interfacing, the most similar fabric to it is something called "camel's hair" in the local dialect. It's quite stiff and there's some kind of glue only on one side.
Well, anyway, the result is quite good to me, colourful and stylish.

Now I just have to learn how to take better pictures... I swear, in real life it looks much better!