Tube socks can be used for much more than just keeping your feet warm and dry. Use a fresh pack of tube socks to make different craft projects. Use tube socks to make puppets to keep children entertained on a rainy day. Use tube socks to create a heating pad to help relax muscles. Use the sock to make a plastic grocery bag holder to keep your kitchen neat and organized.
Instructions
Sock Puppets
1. Put a tube sock on your hand so that the heel is on your knuckles and your fingers face the toe. Open your hand so that your fingers are on top pressed together and your thumb is on the bottom. Press the toe of the sock into the open space created to make your puppet's mouth. Remove the sock from your hand, keeping the toe pressed in.
2. Glue craft eyes onto the sock puppet 1/3 of the way down from the heel toward the toes.
3. Cut strands of yarn and glue them onto the heel of the sock to give your puppet hair. Cut the strands short for a boy puppet and long for a girl puppet.
4. Use permanent markers to draw on the rest of your puppet's facial features such as eyebrows, a mouth and nose. Color a tongue inside the mouth of your puppet and color the rest of the inside of the mouth black.
5. Put the puppet back on your hand like you had it before to put on a puppet show.
Heating Pad
6. Cut the foot of a tube sock off. Turn the tube part of the sock that is left inside out.
7. Sew a straight line 1/2 inch from the edge at one end of the tube sock to close off the opening. Turn the tube right side out again.
8. Fill the pouch you created with uncooked rice. You might not need the whole 2 lbs. of rice, just fill the sock until the rice reaches the point 1 1/2 inches from the top of the pouch.
9. Fold the top of the open end of the pouch down toward the inside of the pouch 1/2 inch. Pinch the folded edges of the opening closed in a flat straight line. Sew a straight line 1/4 inch from the folded edge of the sock to close the heating pad.
10. Heat the rice-filled tube in the microwave for a minute to use it to relax your tense, sore muscles.
Plastic Grocery Bag Dispenser
11. Cut the foot off of a tube sock. Fold the raw edge of the tube left from cutting the foot off the sock in 1/2 inch toward the inside of the sock.
12. Sew around the folded edge of the sock 1/4 inch down from the folded edge to hold the fold in place.
13. Cut small slits around the other end of the tube, about 1/2 inch from the edge of the tube. Space the slits about 1 1/2 inches apart. Thread ribbon back and forth through the slits you cut. Tie the ends of the ribbon together, tightening the ribbon about halfway to make the opening of the tube narrower.
14. Take 6-inch length of ribbon and fold it in half. Sew the loop of ribbon to the end of the tube that isn't narrowed with ribbon to give you something to hang the dispenser by.
15. Stuff your plastic grocery backs into the wide end of the tube. Pull them out of the narrow end when you want to use one.
Tags: tube sock, your hand, your puppet, edge tube, folded edge