How to make a filled Christmas Stocking.

You will need:

• medium weight cardboard (a little thicker than index card is best - like cereal box)
  
• knit fabric (tiny stripe is good - I used an old discarded camisole)
• fabric for cuff  (I used red velour)
• stuffing - such as polyester fiberfill or fluffy white cleaning cloth
• cardboard for form
• fabric scissors
• fabric glue - in fine point glue applicator
• tiny items to 'stuff' into top (plastic figures, dollhouse dollar bills)
• Christmas candy, slices of fimo candy sticks (canes), suckers, etc
• tiny ball trim (mine was cut from the edge of Christmas floral ribbon from Hobby Lobby)
• greenery sprigs (I used small trim with holly leaves from Hobby Lobby - see photo).  I would suggest NOT using the old "lycopodium" preserved greenery.  Although it is perfectly scaled for Christmas greenery it disintegrates after 20 or 30 years leaving your project falling apart.
• silk ribbon for bow
• Pattern - click here for link to pattern

Instructions:

Cut out a stocking shape from cardboard using pattern.  I wanted it to look sort of skinny - like it was stretched from the weight of items inside.  I made the toe pointing down.

Cut a piece of stretchy T-shirt like fabric about twice as wide and 1 inch longer than the pattern.  Decide which direction you want your toe to point then lay it down the OPPOSITE way.  You will be working on the back of it in the next steps.

**DO NOT PUT ANY GLUE ON FRONT OF CARDBOARD** Place some fabric glue along the long side (back) of cardboard cutout pattern. Lay fabric (wrong side down) on the glue, covering about half of the pattern. If there are stripes, make sure they are straight (aligned with the long side of pattern so when fabric is folded to front they will be going straight across).

Now trim off some of the fabric away from the toe area to reduce bulk (see photo).  Put some glue around the toe area of the cardboard.  Trim fabric around toe area so it is only about 1/8th inch bigger than pattern.  Fold this 1/8th inch up covering toe area and keeping tight to the cardboard.

Continue trimming fabric about 1/8th inch beyond the bottom of sock and gluing it to the cardboard, keeping tight to the shape of the cardboard.

 Make a clip in the fabric at the heel.

Trim and glue the remaining half of the back side of the sock.  Let it dry a little (depending on your glue) maybe an hour or so.

 Finished back of sock:

Front should look like this.  Since you used no glue on the front, it should stretch and have room for stuffing:

Take some stuffing material (I used clipped pieces of a fluffy white car detailing rag from the dollar store).  Stuff them down into the sock so they make it look lumpy - but not too full.  You want to keep the general shape of the sock.

Fillers - I had some tiny plastic Santas (about 3/4 inch tall) that I re-painted to add some detail.  You could also use dollar bills, small toys, suckers... Also gingerbread man and gingerbread house fimo canes - slices from these make great filler. 

Add a hanging loop - I just made a knot in a small loop of red ribbon then stuffed the knot down into the sock with some glue. Then put the big items in first (Santa). Add background (gold ball trim, sprigs of greenery).  Fill in with sliced candies or cookies.

I put the cuff on after adding the items.  Sort of just trimmed it as wide as I thought looked good and overlapped it a little on the back.

Add a little bow and DONE!

A recent club project from my miniature club was a shadow box name tag for us all to wear to our club meetings.  The shadow box had just enough room for a tiny display of miniatures depicting our interests.  Fabulous idea!  The kit provided was made from popsicle sticks.  I missed the meeting where they assembled the box and was pressed for time so I made mine from a 2 inch square plastic box (like sold at Container store).   Below are some photos of supplies and the project in progress.

Here are the materials I used:
2 inch square plastic box with lid (those old square Apple ear pod boxes would work great)
brass stamping of a bamboo frame
scrap book paper to line the box
eyeglass chain
two lobster clasps and jump rings
jewelry bails
4 tiny jewelry tassels
Stick on letters
eye pins
small scraps of thin wood
Glue for jewelry bails and for anchoring the items inside the box
pliers (for attaching lobster clasps and jump rings)
Gold paint

E6000 glue

Main steps:

Drill holes for tassels.  Use eye pins to attach tassels.  Bend the eye-pins so they stay flat against the inside bottom of the box.  I filled in around them with some thin scrap wood strips and covered with another thin piece of scrap wood. 

Paint the wood ‘floor’ (I used gold metallic).  Cut a piece of wallpaper or scrapbook paper to line the inside back.  Decide on lettering and items to display.  I used scrapbook letter stickers but some of my club members used letter beads (which showed up better than the sparkly letters).

Attach bails to back with strong glue – like E6000 or epoxy (I think I used E6000)  Connect the chain to the lobster clasp.

Decide on items to put in the space – my “interests” were:

• grandchildren - (tiny baby by Victor Fortunato, ebay ID gtsixtythree)
• sewing -  buttons by Ilisha Helfman, teacup pincushion, thread spools
• roses – from Sandra Manring workshop
• bows – bow made on my bittybow bowmaker
• miniatures – tiny metal dollhouse by metal miniatures (painted by me)

Here is the finished name tag.  I really enjoy wearing it to the club meetings.

Continued from last blog (link here), this is the tutorial to finish the pounding bench - making the table/base, painting, assembly and varnish.  Supplies were given in the previous blog.

One correction - in the previous blog I left out the gloss varnish I used on the entire piece.  I used Delta brand Interior/Exterior gloss varnish.

Painting pegs:

Before you start painting, here are some hints for working with acrylic paint and small parts:

Hint #1 for smoother painting – Use a fresh squirt of paint instead of dipping your brush into a skinned-over blob of partially dried paint – it will just look thick and lumpy!  Nothing is more frustrating than having to keep sanding tiny pieces that are too small to hold and trying to get them smooth.

Hint #2 for smooth painting of small parts – once the first coat is dry and sanded, use a thinner 2nd coat (thin fresh paint with just a tiny amount of water – not too much).  This makes the final coat go on smoother.   

For easier painting, I made a holder by wiring small copper alligator clips to a piece of scrap wood.  After painting a first coat, let dry then turn pegs around (in the holder) to paint the other end.

After they dried, I gently sanded (400 grit) as some looked a little lumpy (because I didn't follow my own hints above and used lumpy paint).  

Paint the mallet, too.

Peg Base Table top:
Hint: make sure you have painted the pegs before you drill holes for them – you may need to adjust the drill bit you use depending on thickness and # coats!

From 1/16th inch thick,  ½ inch wide basswood, cut a piece the length you want.  I used 7/8 inch long for 8 holes but you may want to make it smaller if you only use 6 holes (6 pegs).

Find another piece of 1/16th inch thick scrap wood to test your hole size.  Most toothpicks should fit somewhere between 5/64ths inch or 3/32nd inch drilled hole.  Drill both sizes into the scrap wood and test with one of your painted pegs.  As long as they don’t just fall through the holes, you could use the larger (I planned to glue mine anyway).  If neither fits, you can try to enlarge the smaller size hole with a round file (might take a while for 8 holes).

Diagram for drilling - 8 holes (left) or six (right)

To space the holes evenly, make a pattern on a strip of paper the same width as the base piece (1/2 inch).  Draw horizontal lines on the paper to keep the holes even.  Mark holes on the paper with just a tiny dot in pencil (much smaller than the diagram).  Mine were about 4 mm apart.

Once you get them to look even,  lay the pattern on top of the wood and make an indent with a corsage pin or something similar (like was done for the side panels, previous blog).  I then enlarged the pin mark slightly using my X-Acto knife and #11 blade, using the tiny point like a drill.  If there isn’t a big enough “dent” for the drill bit to sit in, it will “walk” (scoot away from the mark while it spins and carve a line where you don’t want it).

After marking holes in the wood, I drilled first with the 5/64th bit because it is easier to keep it in place in such close quarters.  After all holes were drilled with the smaller bit, I then enlarged them with the 3/32nd bit.  You don’t want to wiggle it – just keep the holes as straight and clean as possible.

Full disclosure – I actually used my practice piece as the bench top because it looked better! This is an inexact process!!  I’m sure Ferd Sobol had much better techniques for making several equidistant holes but he was a master at this!

Clean up holes – there may be little frayed whiskers in each hole (see in photo above). Unless you need bigger holes, DON’T USE A ROUND FILE TO CLEAN THEM!  They will be too large if you do that.  Instead, poke a toothpick into the holes to make the “whiskers” poke out then sand them away from the flat side of the piece with 400 grit sandpaper.  Set aside to be painted or stained.  I left mine just raw wood.  I plan to varnish it like this.

Painting Side/End Panels - paint first coat with acrylic paint and let dry thoroughly.  The grains of the wood will raise up slightly making it rough after the first coat.  Sand again with 400 grit, then paint with a second coat but SLIGHTLY watered down.  Let dry.  It should be fairly smooth now.  If staining instead, do that now.

Decorating with dots using a stylus
I wanted a little more color in my pounding toy so I decided to add colored dots on the end panels.  I used a ball stylus to dip in the paint.  If you make sure your paint is fresh (not skinned over or lumpy) and wipe the stylus on a damp paper towel after EACH dot, you can make them pretty consistent.  See photo of my dot tests on a piece of scrap wood. The graduated dot sizes are what it looks like if you keep making dots without cleaning off the paint between dots (they get smaller and smaller).

Test dots and stylus used for painting

Assembly - Gluing side panels to table top:
On these pounding toys, the peg hole piece is supposed to be perfectly centered between top and bottom so that the child can pound the pegs in on one side then flip it over to pound them back to the other side.
To get the table top perfectly centered, make a jig or use layers of scrap wood to get the right height.  I just “eyeballed” it by stacking a piece of scrap wood on top of one of those blue X-Acto clamps).

"Jig" was a blue clamp and wood scrap

Before gluing, test-fit the pegs in the holes once more then pull them out and set them aside.   Use wood glue to glue the center to both end panels, supporting it with your jig and let dry.  For the mallet – glue handle into the hole.

When glue is dry you can re-fit the pegs in and glue them in.  Then varnish the entire piece for a shiny look (all those toys look sort of shiny).

Hope you had fun with this small project and got a few new techniques.

I am soooooooo overdue in updating my blog!   So sorry to those who have been consistently viewing and reading it!   My day job keeps me busy and rarely have time to make anything worth blogging about!  But after a year and a half - here is another tutorial - it seems like it should have been very simple but had a lot of pieces so I made it a two-parter.
 Part 1 - cutting and shaping the pieces.
 Part 2 will be decorative painting, assembling and finishing.
 

Why a toy pounding bench? I'm working on a peddler's cart that sells toys.  I wanted some toys that didn't look manufactured but hand made.   I had this kit from eons ago that I probably picked up at a round robin (make it and take it). The kit consisted of 4 toothpicks, 3 flat pieces of wood and a small section of a dowel.  There was no photo or instructions - but I had drawn a diagram and put it in the bag with the pieces.   I thought I would see what I could do with it.  So here we go...
 

Materials Needed:
Basswood 1/16th inch thick by ½” wide, about 3 inches long (scrap piece or Hobby Lobby)
Dowel, 3/16th inch diameter (small piece – mallet end)
Round toothpicks, several (for pegs and mallet handle)
(optional – carved end round cocktail toothpicks – for mallet handle)
Other scrap wood to test drill hole and to drill into (save your table or cutting mat!)
Paint or stain
Glue
Varnish (I used water based)

Tools:
X-Acto knife with pointed #11 blade
Metal files for shaping.  I used three for this project: Round “rat tail” metal file [about 1/8th inch] & Smaller round file for enlarging drilled holes (about 1/16th inch diam) & a tiny triangle file (Micro Mark)
Sandpaper, 220 (shaping) and 400 grit (smoothing before painting)
Paintbrush
Corsage pin or T-pin
(optional) Small stylus, ball diameter about 1/32nd inch or smaller – to paint dots
Tool for holding small pegs while painting (I used small copper flat end alligator clips – like are used for electronics)
Drill bits – to match toothpick diameter  (5/64th inch and  3/32nd inch)
Miter box and razor saw with fine teeth
Dremel rotary tool or drill
 

Some of the materials and tools

Instructions – Mallet:
From the dowel, cut about 3/8 “ long.  Make sure both ends are squared with respect to the length.  Use 220 grit sandpaper to square it.  Use 400 grit sandpaper to sand it smooth.

Drill a hole in the center of the dowel for the handle with either 5/64th inch bit.  DON’T DRILL ALL THE WAY THROUGH!  If you taper the end of the handle a little it might fit in the smaller size hole.
For the handle you can either cut a plain toothpick or make it fancy by using one of those cute carved end toothpicks.  If using a plain one, cut off almost all the tapered end.  Leave a little bit of taper so it will help to fit it into the hole (or you can just use sandpaper to taper).  Smooth the handle with 400 grit (don’t use 220 or you might sand the carved detail off).
Set these aside to be painted when you paint the other parts (don’t glue them yet).

Instructions - Side Panels:
From 1/16th inch thick,  ½ inch wide basswood, cut 2 pieces ¾ inch long.

Shape the end pieces - Steps shown below starting from bottom.  Make a paper template with holes marked.  Lay the template on the wood piece and mark holes in wood with a corsage pin (make a big dent). Drill holes (I used 5/64th bit) then enlarge them to the clover shape with a rat tail (round) metal file OR 220 sandpaper wrapped around a small diameter paintbrush handle.
Once the side panels are shaped, sand the cutout and smooth with 400 grit sandpaper.  
Sand the flat faces and straight edges also with 400 grit sandpaper before staining/painting.

Shaped end panels

Instructions for Pegs:
Pick a few toothpicks that are the best looking without splinters, rough spots, flat sides.  Also make sure they are consistent diameter so they will all fit in the drilled holes.  Pick enough so that when tapered ends are removed you have enough for 6 or 8 pegs.  Before cutting them, sand with 400 grit just to smooth them.  If you use 220 you might make them too small or inconsistent.

After sanding, cut off the tapered ends so that the remaining center sections are consistent thickness all along the length.  From these, cut 6 or 8 pegs (as desired).  Mine were about 1/2 inch long.
To make several pegs the same length using your miter box, clamp a “stop” (scrap piece of wood, at least 1/8th inch thick) to the front edge of the miter box at the desired distance from the blade groove (see photo).

Before cutting pegs, make sure the toothpick end is flat and square (use 220 sandpaper).  Then butt the square end up against the stop.  I marked the length with my X-acto knife while in the miter box then took it out of the miter box and rolled it while cutting on the mark with the X-acto.  If you can roll it straight this works.  But if that doesn’t work well, you can use the fine tooth razor saw instead.

Before cutting the next peg, again, square off the cut end – if you don’t then there will be a tiny point that sticks out and will affect the length of the next one.

I shaped my pegs by putting grooves near each end using first an X-Acto knife then enlarging the groove with a small file with sharp edge – I used a small triangle shaped file.  Lastly I used a folded piece of 400 grit sandpaper to sand the grooves (obsessive, I know!).

That's it for now!  Next time I will describe how to make the base table piece (with the holes for the pegs) and paint and assemble.
Thanks to all my readers for putting up with my long break!

painting and decorating - next blog