Binkies and Briefcases

Yesterday our local FOX station aired a segment about my $0 Christmas projects on the 10:00 news.

If you are new to Binkies & Briefcases, you can find all of the projects that I have completed over the past few months by clicking on the links below.

So far I have completed these children’s toys

“Colorforms”
A Felt Tool Set
A Space Play Set
Dinosaurs (Pattern available at the top of my side bar)
Stuffed Crabs (Pattern available at the top of my side bar)
Dominoes
Puffy Dollhouse
Sweater Puppets (These made the top 10 in this month’s Iron Crafter Competition)
Rag Doll

You can also find other low-cost ideas for gift-giving for older children or adults like my recent sweater sleeve stockings, homemade vanilla extract,or blueprint art.

I’d like to thank Nava & FOX 43 for featuring my story, I hope that we can inspire some other families to focus on the true meaning of Christmas without getting caught up in the commercialism.

I don’t really have a tutorial for this project, but don’t worry. It’s really easy. If I can do it, you can too.

I picked up this wooden tool box at Goodwill a few months ago. I thought I could use it to store craft supplies or grow a mini herb garden or something, but I never did so I decided to turn it into another no-spend Christmas gift for Nicholas.

All I did was cut tool-shapes out of craft felt, sew them together & stuff them with poly-fill. I made hammer, a saw, and a screwdriver. The yellow thing is supposed to be a ruler, but I don’t think it turned out very well. Then I wrote his name on the box with a Sharpie. I was originally going to paint it, but he’s a boy & he’s 3, I assure you he does not care one little bit what color it is so it is staying au naturel.

The only hard part was stuffing the poly-fill in the long skinny pieces like the screw driver. I used a crochet hook, but it was still a bit tricky.

Other felt tool sets can run as much as $40. I spent $0.

That means my no-spend Christmas total savings is up to $326.