DIY CRAYON WALLET

Christmas time is nearly here, and this year I decided to make a few gifts to save some money. My sister and brother-in-law are about to jump on a plane and take their three kids to Cambodia for six months to volunteer for a charity. They said 'no Christmas presents' because the postal system over there is not very reliable, so I had a think about what I could make for them that would be fun for the trip, and I could give to my nieces and nephew beforehand.

I came across this pattern on Etsy (Via Pinterest) and thought that I would create a few myself, with a little addition of a cute animal friend on the front.

The idea for the pocket friend came from my lovely Grandmother. When I was about 5 or 6 years old, she made my sister and I dressing gowns each, that had a little pocket and animal attached by a ribbon. We thought they were just the bees knees! I chose a different animal for each of my nieces and nephew, and sewed their initial onto the pockets.

You can see below how the envelope unfolds. This ended up being a very cost-effective gift - the packets of crayons were $2 each from a dollar shop, and the notepads were $1.80 each from the supermarket. Fabric was a mix of some I had on hand, with a couple of items specially purchased from the quilting store.

If you want to make one of these yourself, you could purchase the pattern from Etsy, or you could have a play and pull one together yourself.

These are the measurements of the final product:

I started trying to pull step-by-step instructions together but it was a bit of trial and error so I thought I would leave off! When making the strip that will hold the crayons in, make it longer than you need (start with about 20cm) so you can bunch it up as needed to fit the crayons in, then tuck the excess into the two main layers before you sew around the outside (make that the final step - apart from the sewing top edge which I sewed together first - tucking the crayon strip inside to secure well)

You could also buy one of these ready-made of course :)

Mx