How to Make Inexpensive Easter Gifts From Old Socks

A while back I heard that when women go through menopause they lose nouns. I thought to myself, "Where the heck do they go? Do they go where one sock goes? You know, when they divorce the other sock and disappears for eternity."

A few years later I began to notice that I couldn't remember some names, certain words, and then I knew. I hunted furiously for the land of lost socks but to no avail. When your socks get a divorce, it is definitely final. I decided that my best bet would be to wear odd socks that closely resembled each other, buy only one style in the future to avoid the dilemma, and find something to do with the old ones. I have several ideas; some are lame, some are cute, and one may get me nominated for the Nobel Prize, if Al Gore doesn't take credit for it first.
Periodically I will share these ideas, saving the very best for last, since my schedule is too busy to pick up the prize right now. You can make inexpensive Easter gifts from socks. Make a sock Easter peeper jar with odd white or yellow socks, a sock bunny jar, and a sock monkey will use up the odd black or brown sock. Use this article at Halloween and make a sock Halloween cat. You can get creative and find other characters if you have odd colored socks. All you need to make these are socks, a quart Mason jar, appropriate colored felt, stuffing, embroidery floss, glue, wide ribbon (7/8 inch is good), and of course, scissors and other tools to use.

Cut the sock at the toe. An Easter chick, bunny, cat or monkey; only require 2 3/4 inches of toe. Cut it at the three-inch mark. It is easier to cut a little later than try to add on to the sock. Stuff the end of the sock and fit the raw edges over the Mason jar cap and glue. Your base is ready for the embellishments that make it your animal.

Monkey: Cut the face shape out of tan felt. The muzzle is an oval with two small bumps above it so you can emphasize the eyes. I find that keeping a simple child's coloring book on hand gives me a lot of patterns to use.

Put some of the features on before you attach the felt to the sock. Make two small embroidery dots for the nostrils using French knots. You make French knots by wrapping the thread around the needle several times and then going down through the top of the felt. Draw a line for the big monkey smile and stem stitch over the line. A stem stitch goes from one side of the line to the other at an angle, leaving no space uncovered.

Lightly apply glue to the back of the face and center it on the sock. Use black embroidery floss to create a running stitch around the edge of the face. (If you don't know what that is, it looks like a series of dashes and comes from going down through the material and coming back up a little further down the line and repeating.) This not only outlines the muzzle it keeps it in place.

Make the ears by cutting two 1 1/2 inch circles in half. Sew two halves together around the arch and turn right side out. Outline with a running stitch and create the second ear. Stitch both onto the head.

You can add wiggle eyes or make eyes from black and white felt and glue onto the face.

Trim up any edges of the sock that are beneath the edge of the lid and glue a piece of brightly colored ribbon all the way around slightly overlapping at the front side. Create a bow from the same ribbon and glue onto the overlap. Add a decoration on the bow center if you like. Buttons of another bright color are cute.

Fill the jar with peanuts and screw on the lid. You now have a cute craft from the sock you've been saving for five years. It is a darling inexpensive gift for Easter or anytime.

Cats are made very similar but the ears are matching colored diamonds cut in half and a triangle of pink glued in. A pink triangle is used for the nose and white ovals are used as eyes with either black in the center as the pupil or a shiny emerald. The mouth is created using a slipstitch with a line coming from the nose. You can add whiskers with bits of black felt or stiffened embroidery floss put on before hand. Fill the jar with candy corn at Halloween if it is a black cat, kitty treats, or Easter candy.

Bunnies have pointy ears and are basically similar to cats after that. An addition of a big white tooth is also cute. Fill the jar with Easter candy.

A chick just needs two larger diamonds of orange felt, stitched together wrong side up. Turn it right side out and close the hole by hand. Topstitch the beak with matching thread and put a top stitch down the center for the fold. Stitch this onto the sock head. Add a feather coming out of the top. Fill the jar with Easter candy.