I didn’t get nearly the “handmade” part of Christmas done that I would have liked to this year (do we ever really get it ALL done?), but I did manage to eek these out by the skin of my teeth. I decided on the 23rd that I had to make these cases for all 4 of the boys (who have been OBSESSED with drawing and art recently) and the race was on. In the midst of normal family duties, plus holiday family duties, I finished the 4th one at about 10:30 on Christmas Eve.
My embroidery machine is at the doctor’s office because it got a case of the Christmas blues or something, so I just used regular machine stitching to include each child’s initial on the front. With 4 boys, we have our fair share of “But that was MINE!!!” going on, this was one way to combat that.
I also tried to make sure that the fabrics I used for each one were ones that they had specifically commented that they liked, or was something that I knew matched their interests (Mattie is a HUGE Transformers fan, so I knew he’d love that one). That’s one of the best parts of making things specifically for my kidlets, being able to completely customize it just for them.
The inside fits regular sized Crayola Twistables perfectly, but all I could find on Christmas Eve were the mini ones. That’s why the flap looks odd, it’s put there to keep the crayons from falling out, but when the crayons are only half the size, well…. The slots are big enough to also fit mechanical pencils in as well as you can see.
The only real change I made to the pattern as written was how I did the closure. I used a piece of FOE (we all know I’m obsessed right?) folded in half that is long enough to go back over the top to close the case. Easier for little hands than buttons or tying ribbon, plus I had these really cool prints that coordinated so well!
This really is a fabulous pattern, it’s the Small Books pattern by Craft Apple, the Artists Cases version. It sewed up very quickly, each one of these really only took about 30 minutes total. The instructions are very clear and easy to understand, as I’ve found to be the case with all of Linda’s patterns.
Tomorrow, I’ll post some funny pictures of Christmas aftermath here at the homestead. Wanna show me yours?
