Crochet the Day Away

I am always trying to come up with ideas to try to reduce my stash of yarn. I have a lot of generic worsted weight acrylic yarn stored away in  plastic tubs. I am not allowed to buy anymore yarn until I've made a sizeable dent in my stash. I was sitting on the couch a few weeks ago when I came up with the idea to crochet a coupon minder for my sister. She is a recent college grad (aka: broke) and has started clipping coupons to save some money. This is the finished product:

The green is actually brighter but I took the photo with the camera on my phone which stinks.

I made the pattern up as I went along, so here's the basic idea:

Materials:
   2 Colors of Yarn from your Stash
   Crochet Hook in Size H (or whatever works for the yarn you've chosen. you want a solid product without holes for things to fall through)
   A Large Button

Ch. 28
Starting in the 3rd chain from the hook, hdc (half double crochet) in each chain until the end. Ch 2. Turn.
All Body Rows: hdc all the way across then ch 2. Turn. Easy, right? (The above example has a total of 20 rows.)

Flap: This is where it might get a little tricky as I'm not exactly sure exactly how I completed the decrease stitches, but as long as you decrease one stitch at the beginning and end of each row, you should be fine. When you've reached your desired length (you'll be folding the piece in half to make a pocket so crochet twice what you want the finished length to be), after turning start the hdc but when you have the 3 loops on the hook at the end of the stitch don't pull the yarn through, immediately start the next stitch and at the end of that stitch pull the yarn through all the loops on the hook. Hdc until you have two stitches remaining and repeat the decrease step, ch2, turn and repeat as desired to form the envelope style flap (I repeated for 7 rows in the final product above).

Finishing: Using one of your colors and starting at either bottom corner, slip stitch the edges together then continue slip stitching the border of the flap until you reach the middle, chain as many stitches as needed to make a button loop large enough for the button you've selected. Continuing where you left off, slip stitch the remaining border of the flap and other side of the pouch. Weave in any loose ends.

I hope that makes sense. If you try this and have any problems, leave a comment and I'll try and help you out.