handmaking little things

I am in charge of the goodie bags for my 6 year old’s holiday party. I was racking my brain for filler because I didn’t want to just buy some junky little toys that would probably never be played with (those tiny pinball things, plastic tops that do not spin ;) Last year I had included things like playdoh (you could make up a big batch and then send it in ziploc bags, or gumball machine plastic bubbles…homemade goop would be good too) But I wanted to do something different this year since his class has some of the same students.



The first thing I decided to make was these little gnomes. A bag of 5 blank wooden figures was $1.47 and I had everything else at home that I needed. I cut the clothing from felt and just made a quick stitch through each one on my sewing machine, then pulled the stitches to gather the neckline. Then I used my glue gun to attach the clothing to the gnome. The hats were just triangles cut out and glued onto the heads with my trusty glue gun. And all the faces were just drawn on with marker.



Next we made up little hot chocolate kits. My youngest son helped with these and really liked making them. We bought the plastic triangle tubes which are made for frosting. I think would put each tube into a tall glass we have and pull down the top of the plastic bag onto the rim of the glass. This made for easy filling. I then used a measuring cup to put in one serving of cocoa. B then would use a 1/4 measuring cup to add chips (we had chocolate, white chocolate, and mint) and then 1/4 cup of marshmallows. We did it assemble line style and were able to make 35 hot chocolate kits in less then an hour! You could easily change things up to make a vegan style kit too. Using a powdered chocolate and sugar mixture, then vegan chips or crushed candy cane on top. Include a little card with each kit explaining how to make the cocoa (like how much hot water or milk is needed) One of each of these is going into the goodie bags, and then a bunch went into stockings that we make each year for my older son’s friends.



Next up we made bell necklaces. I bought a big bag of over sized silver bells and just strung them onto ribbon we had. Easy, very inexpensive and again maybe something that would last a little longer.

I also want to make little kits so each kid can create their own Crystal Snowflake. We have a big thing of borax from other projects, so I would only need to print instructions, and add the pipe cleaners. We have plans to make some of these ourselves very soon! Then I’ll round out the goodie bags with a little bit of candy, some snowflake foam stickers, and a candy cane reindeer.

Oh and our very first ornament from the Crafty Crow’s Kid Ornament Swap arrived yesterday. it was very exciting!!