Project: Crayon Roll-Ups

One of the gifts I most loved designing and making this year, what I've been calling "crayon roll-ups," went to three of the special children in my life: Haiden, David, and Lauren.


After seeing several similar items in craft fairs and blogs, I decided it couldn't be that hard to whip up a simple version of my own! A sweet little crayon caddy for today's young artist on the go. Plane trips, weekends at Grandma's, waiting at a busy restaurant - covered!

I started at the local craft store by picking out squares of felt in each child's favorite color, and a couple 24-packs of crayons. Of course, I already had a massive supply of fun cotton prints stored away in my closet to sort through, so that part was covered.

Normally I'm not big on projects that show off my less-than-delicate sewing. My seams tend to meander, and accurate measurement is no friend of mine. I've accepted it. But for this project, the extra effort was worth it. Most of my time was spent measuring, ironing, and re-measuring, trying to perfect the mitered corners and width of the cotton panel.

Once the slots were sewn and the crayons were in place, I had some puzzling to do. I dug into my craft chest and pulled out ribbons, buttons, elastic, hook-&-loop, and all kinds of other notions to rig up a closure.

Originally I pictured ribbons that would tie in a bow, but then remembered the recipients were still wearing Velcro shoes. Next, I thought elastic would be easier for little hands, but (a) I couldn't figure out how to sew a button hole in the elastic and (b) it looked terrible! So, I scrapped it and moved back to ribbon.

Finally I decided simple is best. I sewed a loop of ribbon long enough to reach back around and hook onto a button. And even though it looked absolutely darling, I had to replace that star-shaped button in the pictures with a classic round one. If it was tricky for me to unhook the ribbon, it would be impossible for Haiden!

Hopefully the recipients (and their parents) will enjoy using these as much as I enjoyed making them!