Crocheted Stocking Stuffers

I realize that Christmas was yesterday so this post is a few days late for this year and several months too early for next Christmas but I still wanted to post a couple of ideas I used this year. I didn't actually use them for stocking stuffers, I put them in the kids Christmas bags that I wrote about in my last post. They would work for any time you need a small gift, the little purses would be cute as a gift for a little girl and the chapstick holder is convenient for keeping track of little chapstick tubes, at least that was my hope when I made it, we'll see how it works out.



The pattern for the little purses is not mine, I found it on Ravelry. I thought it looked cute and easy so I decided to make one for each of my girls. You can find the pattern at The Green Dragonfly or on Ravelry. I made mine just a little bit different because I am lazy and didn't want to sew a side seam. I crocheted it in the round rather than in a flat rectangle. All I did was crochet in both sides of the beginning chain. I believe it was 20 hdc across so instead of turning and working back across those stitches I just did 20 more hdc on the other side of the chain, joined it to the first and continued working 40 hdc around until it was as long as I wanted. Other than that I think I followed the pattern pretty closely.

The first purse that I made was inspired by a certain Disney Princess who seemed to be very popular this Christmas. My oldest daughter is just as obsessed as every other 6 year old girl out there so I thought she would like it. She saw me sewing it together and told me she really wanted that to be for her because it looked like Elsa so I guess it worked. Normally she is an everything needs to be pink girl but I guess now light blue is okay as long as it is matched up with something white, sparkly, and sort of snowflake-ish. When I saw the pattern I immediately thought of an Elsa inspired purse because I thought the doily looked a little like a snowflake. I used Red Heart Super Saver in light blue for the bag and Red Heart Shimmer in snow for the flap. You can't really tell in the picture but the white yarn has a sparkly thread in it so that helps add to the Frozen factor. I used a clear button that I thought looked a little like ice to finish it off. 

The other two were just whatever color combos I found in my yarn that I thought looked okay together. This one was made with Super Saver in gray heather, Vanna's Choice in soft pink, and Red Heart Shimmer in snow. I finished it off with a simple silver button.

The yellow bag was made from Michael's Craftsmart yarn, I believe the color was butter, I think the picture makes it look a little bit brighter . The flap is Super Saver in Aruba Sea and White. I found a button that matched and finished it up.

The purses are pretty small but they are a good size for little girls, especially my 1 and 2 year olds and I thought they turned out pretty cute.

The other things that I made were these little chapstick holders. I made one for each of my two oldest kids. As we were at Target picking out some little gifts from their dollar section, I happened to see a multi-pack of chapstick for a good price and thought that it would be a good thing to throw in their bags. My son gets chapped lips and every time that they start to get bad we end up having to make an emergency chapstick run to the store because it always gets lost in a matter of days. I knew I had seen both crocheted and sewn chapstick holders before so I thought that might be a good way to try to keep it from getting lost. There are several patterns out there for these, I figured it would be easy enough that I didn't even look for one, and I had an idea of how I wanted it to turn out so I just did it my own way. I will share how I made mine here at the end of this post, it is really, super easy and quick and hardly takes any yarn at all. 

My son's I made gray, blue and lime green, Seahawks colors. He is a big Seahawks fan since the beginning of last season when he found out they had a player who was deaf. Before that he had never really had a team that was "his team". What a year to decide the Seahawks were his team, he followed them all season and was so excited when they made it to the Superbowl and then won. Now blue and lime green is his favorite color combination. You can see in this picture how I used the chain loop to attach to the zipper on his backpack. I know a lot of patterns use a keychain ring but I made these at the last minute and didn't have key rings so I came up with something else. 

For my daughter I decided to go with pinks. I had several pinks so I made it sort of an ombre style from hot pink to pink to light pink to white. The yarns in hers were slightly different thicknesses but I think it still worked out okay. I just adjusted the number of stitches to account for the thinner yarn. 

If you want to make your own here is how I did it.

With worsted weight yarn and a G hook, start with a magic circle. Make 9-10 sc in the magic ring. I did 9 for the gray one using Super Saver yarn and 10 for the pink using Caron Simply Soft because it is a thinner yarn. Working in the round, sc in the back loop of each stitch. Continue to sc around until it is as tall as you want it. Mine are about 8-9 rows tall. Slip stitch to the first first stitch of the last round, then ch 15-20 and slip stitch to the next stitch. The chain loop needs to be big enough for the tube part to fit through.

The stripe patterns I did were:
For the gray, I started with gray on the bottom and then did 2 rows of gray, 1 blue, 1 green, 1 blue, 1 green, 1 blue, then 2 gray to finish it.
For the pink, I started with hot pink and did the bottom and 2 rows,  2 pink, 2 light pink, 2 white.

These were really quick and easy to make and take such a tiny amount of yarn so they would be great for using up scraps or to throw in with a gift as a quick little extra.