Mini Felt Stockings

I have the cutest little white feather Christmas tree that I display on my table at holiday craft shows. I've been using it just to decorate my space, but it draws so much attention I wanted to figure out a way to use it for product display.

So I made a few little felt stockings to hang on the tree that are the perfect size for the chubby crayons. They were really fun and super quick to make!

I found a this template for a mini stocking on Martha Stewart's website, printed it, cut it out, pinned it to some felt, and cut around it. Then I pinned some ribbons on, pinned two pieces of the felt together, straight stitched around it in a contrasting color and waalaa! I think they would be really cute if you used pinking shears to cut the "seam allowance" after you stitched them together, but I can't find my pinking shears anywhere...

Now my only concern is that I'm going to have to keep saying "the stockings aren't for sale, just the crayons" :)

Stocking or Basket Stuffers

This is a really sweet little craft that makes an awesome stocking stuffer, or in the case of these pictures, a fun addition to an Easter basket. They're also a great project to do with your little one, not only can they actually help with this easy process, it helps promote color recognition too.

1. Get some crayons on the cheap (but only by raiding your kid's stash for the broken ones, using a coupon, or checking the store for a box of broken crayons you can get a discount on... be sure to use quality crayons) and peal the paper wrappers off.

2. This is just a matter of preference, but personally I much prefer grouping like colors together, so I sort them. All the various shades of blues together, all the shades of yellow together etc.

3. Cut the crayons into 1/4 - 1/2 inch chunks

4. Fill a mold with the chunks. This mold is a silicone one in the shape of Easter Eggs, the silicone worked really well when it was time to unmold them. I filled each egg with about the equivilant of 5 full size crayons but that will vary depending on the mold you pick, I think the chunkier the better is a good rule of thumb.

5. Melt the crayons in a 250 degree oven just until all the chunks are melted (these took about 12 minutes, but it'll vary depending on your mold).

6. Remove the crayons from the oven and let them cool... if you have antsy little ones, you could put them in the freezer to speed up the cooling process a little.

7. Unmold and get creative!