Something to Make: Fold-up Crayon Pouch

There was a time that parents (well, mothers) weren't just encouraged to sew clothing and projects for their children, but were expected. Now, this isn't quite the norm nowadays but mothers and fathers are getting back in the habit of being crafty for their and their kid's sakes. For those who are starting to get the itch to stitch, we wanted to create a project that could be done without patterns and in as short amount of time as possible.

Therefore, we present step-by-step instructions (and nifty little illustrations) on how to make our Nested Fold-up Crayon Pouch.

The instructions follow below. If you make this, let us know in the comments and if you have any tweaks to the instructions, we'll welcome the feedback!

Updated: To make it easier to make this away from your computer, here's a PDF to download and print out: Download crayon-pouch.pdf

Materials:
You will need

• 2 pieces of fabric 11" x 5" (we recommend a cotton like Calico since you can pick up one remnant square for quilts and have enough fabric).
• 1 piece of coordinating felt 11" x 3".
• 1 24" piece of coordinating ribbon which you will fold to form 2 12" pieces.
• Scissors, pins, thread, sewing machine (or hands), a box of crayons

Construction Instructions:

1. Line up your felt piece with the bottom edge of your fabric. Be sure that you've place the felt on the image side of your fabric.
2. Next, take the folded ribbon and place it on top of the felt, about 3/4 the way down from the top of the felt edge.
3. Then, make a "fabric sandwich" by placing the second piece of fabric on top of the fabric piece one, felt and ribbon. The image sides of the fabrics will be touching each other. Be sure to leave a bit of the ribbon exposed.

   

4. Now that you have your "sandwich" of fabrics, apply a stitch around the perimeter of the rectangle. Be sure to leave one small area unstitched so you'll be able to pull the pouch inside out.

   

5. Next, turn the pouch inside out by gently pulling the inside pouch fabric through the hole that you left open. Once your pouch is complete reversed and in the correct position, you may  choose to press the pouch with an iron to make it flatter and easier to work with.

6. Because the slit that you left open is still raw, you will next need to fold over the edges to match the rest of the pouch. Baste the area you've just folded. Once you have folds that match up with each other, stich another border around the perimeter of the entire pouch. BE SURE TO CATCH THE AREA YOU LEFT OPEN.



7. To reinforce your pouch, stitch once more around the perimeter of the pouch. These stitchs should be about 1/4" away from the first perimeter stitch you just made.

   

8. At this point, you have a fully formed pouch (minus the slots for the crayons). In this final step, you will create the little slots that you'll place your crayons in. Depending on how many crayons you want to hold and the width of the crayons, you can mark the appropriate widths using chalk (or eyeball it). For this case, we marked off columns that are about 3/4" wide. This gave us 11 slots for crayons. If you make the slots a little wider (say around 1" each, you usually can fit two crayons in each pouch).
   
   The stitch that we used is one continuous stitch that starts at the bottom of the second column and then continues to snake around the rest of the pouch. When stitching, we use the perimeter stitches as guides and try to stitch directly on top of previous stitches. Since no horizontal stiches are sewn on the top part of the felt (only the fabric), you're not in danger of sewing closed any of the crayon slots.



9. That's it! You now have constructed your crayon pouch. Fill with crayons, roll-up and give to a child who loves to draw.

Comments

[Rachel]

This is great! Adorable, fun, and seems easy to whip up for gifts, etc. My only feedback would be to have a print-friendly PDF that could be downloaded and/or just easliy printed out. Great work - great blog! :)

[Mena]

Rachel,

Thanks for the comment! You'll notice that the post has been updated to include a PDF to print out.

[eleen]

This is adorable! Thanks for posting. I'm going to have to whip up a few for my little nephews.

[Tricia Crawford]

Too cute! this is my new favorite child gift! Thanks!

[Tny]

Yeah it's cuta and yet adorable...
Sure it can also design as pencil case..yea =) awesome! Thanks for the idea.

[RookieMom Heather]

Love it -- I'll try to get Whitney to make me one.

[Andre'a]

I love the idea of a crayon pouch! Thanks for sharing.

-Andre'a

[RookieMom Whitney]

Heather! Make it yourself! These instructions are very clear. Very cute blog!

[Whitney]

I made a similar one for my own craft stuff. I like to take my crochet hooks and embroidery needles and scissors along with me. I just made the slots different sizes to fit what I wanted in there. I would love to make this for a glue stick, scissors, and other art supplies and give it as a cute kids birthday gift.

[Heather Lhotka]

What a great idea. You could make the pockets any size. They can hold toy race cars or other small precious items. I can't wait to make a whole bunch of these. Thanks!!!

[Cara]

If you make the slots wider to fit two crayons (like in the photo above), you could probably also use it with the jumbo crayons and just put one in each. You might have to make the whole the a little taller to fit the longer jumbo crayons, but it would be an easy adjustment.

[Linda Sloterdijk]

Great idea thank you for sharring

[Angie]

Such of a great tutorial! I'll have to make this for my girls. Thank you!

[kathi kunzin]

loved the crayon tote, i changed it a bit and added a space for a pocket size notebook for drawing on at resturants before meals or in the cartrips. it can be tied to the side of the car seat for easy self-access. loved it. thanks for the inspiration.

[kathi kunzin]

loved the crayon tote, i changed it a bit and added a space for a pocket size notebook for drawing on at resturants before meals or in the cartrips. it can be tied to the side of the car seat for easy self-access. loved it. thanks for the inspiration.

[Cecilia]

Great idea! I'm going to try to make one using a placemat - I was thinking I could just fold it lengthwise instead of using felt. We'll see how it turns out!

[Laura]

Fabulous tute! I made 2 of these this afternoon and they turned out adorable.

[ilse]

wow, great pictures and tutorial! thank you! :) (i also thought I'd make one for knitting needles (dpns)! :D) thanks again for taking the time to show the clueless and hopeful, like me, how to do it.

[Nikki]

Hi my name is Nikki and I volunteer to write for homeschool bloggers company porch. My contribution is the craft corner. I am always looking for new craft to post about. Would you be willing to allow me to post you crayon craft. I will make sure everyone knows that you made the tutorial. I think many of the moms there could craft something like this.
Please email me at Angelheart135@aol.com and put Craft corner in the subject heading

Thanks for considering
Nikki

[Elizabeth Leone]

What great fun! I made four of these yesterday, thanks to your brilliant idea and excellent instructions. You can see my pouches here - http://munchkinsonthepath.blogspot.com/2007/08/crayon-pouches.html .

[m]

What a great idea!

[Kansas A]

I made six of these today! They turned out EXCELLENT! Thanks so much for sharing :) If you'd like to look here's my post:
http://kansasa.blogspot.com/2007/12/more-crafts.html

[Amber]

Wow this is really cute I had to read step 8 a couple of times b4 I understood then all of a sudden it HIT me!!! I love this if you have anymore cute simple ideas send them my way

amber.browning@hotmail.com

THANKS :)

[Heather]

I just made one this morning. It was so easy and my son loves it!