Creating my way to Success: Juggle Balls and Bag

Challenge 10 of our 12 Days of Christmas DIY Challenges is to make a stocking filler gift from fabric scraps. I've made plenty things that fit this challenge over the past few years - with many of those tutorials to be found in my round up of

100 Free Sewing Tutorials for Stocking Filler Gifts.

But of course I had to make something new for this challenge so this is what I came up with.

A set of juggle balls and a special 'juggle' bag to put them in!

Here's how you can make your own novelty

Juggle bag stocking filler gift!

You will need:

Fabric Scraps

Stuffing

Cord or ribbon for the drawstring bag.

First to make the balls

Cut a piece of scrap paper 8 x 4 cm (3.25 x 1.5")

Fold your paper in half then half again. Open out and then re-fold length-ways. Cut from the fold up to the centre crease in a curve and down to the other folded edge to make an oval shape as shown in the picture below.

Use this paper template to cut 6 pieces of fabric, I chose 2 of each of 3 different fabrics, but you can choose all the same or all different, whatever you like!

Now sew these pieces together, one by one with right sides of the fabric facing along one side of each piece.

When you have joined all your pieces and just have the gap at the end, pin your first and last pieces together, right sides facing, but when you stitch this time, leave a gap to turn your ball right sides out!

When you have finished stitching, turn your ball right sides out through the gap.

Then stuff until firm.

And hand-stitch the opening closed.

And that is one ball finished!

I made 5 balls of different colours for my bag.

To make the drawstring bag

I used my own 'simple drawstring bag' tutorial for this bag - which you can find here.

I used more of the fabric scraps I had used to make the balls, but none were big enough for the bag on their own, so I had to patch them together to make pieces big enough to work with! You can either do this or if your scraps are larger than mine, just cut them to size.

To add the word 'juggle' to one side of the bag, simply write the word on the fabric using a white pencil. You can just faintly see it here in the picture.

Then set your machine to a very tight zig-zag (applique) setting and stitch over the letters you have written.

Now follow the tutorial to make your drawstring bag.

And your stocking filler gift is ready!

This would be the perfect stocking filler for kids - a fun new skill for them to play with and try to learn!

For the free downloadable PDF version of this tutorial, click here.

What stocking filler gifts will you make from your fabric scraps - or have you already made one? Please do link up your own answer to this challenge in our linky party here. It will stay open until Christmas so there's plenty of time to link up your projects and be inspired by others!

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Each day a challenge will be set by means of a video and blog posts giving some suggested ideas and crafts. These posts will also contain a linky party for anyone and everyone who wants to join in to link up their projects - both past and present, that answer the challenge. The linky party can be found on all our blogs and we'll try and come up with different ideas and tutorials for the challenges too. So please do visit us all, and then share your ideas with us as well! We're looking forward to seeing how these challenge are met!

Ready, Steady....Let's Christmas Craft!

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