Sock Snowman

Guest Writer: Amy Hamblin

Finding gifts to give everyone in the family can sometimes be quite the chore.  You want the gifts to be nice and thoughtful but you don’t want to spend a zillion dollars on them.  Having little kids is a great excuse to make a cheap homemade gift.  People love it and think it is so cute even though it is made out of your husbands old socks.

This is what we gave our family for Christmas a few years ago and they all loved it.  All you need for this lovely sock snowman is:

-Old tube socks

-Rice

-Batting, cotton or something to stuff with.

-Old canning lids

-Yarn

-A couple buttons

-Fabric scraps

-A little puff ball to go on top

-A little thread and needle

-Marker

The first thing I did was sew a couple of buttons on to the middle of the sock.  I did this with yarn because I thought it was cuter that way but you could just use thread.  Next, put the old canning lid in the sock all the way down at the toe.  This helps to keep it standing up because it will have a flat surface.  Next fill the sock about a quarter full with rice.  A cup should be enough maybe less depending on the sock and fill the rest with batting.  After that fold down the top of the sock to make it look like it is wearing a stocking cap and the sew it shut with the puffball on top.  Now is when I drew the face on because I could see where I wanted it to go and I just used a Crayola marker to do that.  When the face is finished take a scrap piece of fabric and tie it around to make a scarf.  Now you are ready to put it in a gift bag and ship it off as a gift.

Can you really get any cheaper than that?  The grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins will all love it because your little ones made it with a little help from you.  If you are feeling bad then add a plate of homemade cookies and you will be all set.  Homemade gifts can often be more thoughtful and people tend to keep them longer because they know how hard you worked on it.  So if you are in a money crunch, as most of us are this holiday season, stop shopping and figure out what you can give with what you already have.