DLTK's Crafts for Kids Octopus Sock Craft The project requires either sewing or hot glue skills.  A child of age 9 or so could do the project with adult supervision.  Younger children can help stuff the project and would love to receive it as a gift from an older sibling, parent or grandparent. You could put in rice instead of stuffing to make this more of a beanbag.

This is a terrific first sewing project for children.  If using it as such, I recommend having the children sew the body pieces together using a running stitch or a blanket stitch and then glue the remaining pieces together.  I would fill with pillow stuffing instead of rice ... stuffing won't leak out as easily if the child didn't keep their stitches tight enough.

Pam, from the Cornerstone Academy, adds:  The socktopus can also be used as a door stop if a few clean rocks are intermingled with stuffing.

Materials:

• one old sock (adult size)
• two pieces felt  (legs) - we used pink
• one scrap black felt  (mouth)
    
• small piece fun foam or thick cardboard
    
• two wiggly eyes
      
• hot glue OR sewing machine OR needle and thread
    
• pillow stuffing, cotton balls or toilet paper (or uncooked rice if you prefer a bean bag)
    
• scissors
• scotch tape
• printer and paper

Instructions:

• Print out the template (see bottom of this page)
    
• Cut out the template pieces
    
• Scotch tape the body template to one of the pieces of felt.
  • Cut the shape from the felt
  • I scotch tape templates onto felt instead of pinning them as I find it easier... it doesn't "buckle" as much.  It's very easy to just pull any tape off the felt after cutting
  • Make sure you scotch tape liberally!
      
• Repeat with the second piece of felt.
    
• Scotch tape the mouth to the black felt and cut out.
    
• Scotch tape the bow pieces to a scrap of the main body felt and cut out.
    
• Scotch tape the circle to the fun foam or cardboard and cut out.
    

Cut the toe area off the sock to act as your socktopus's head... 4 to 5 inches of the sock.    Stuff the sock    Insert the circle into the open end of the sock and hot glue the edges of the sock to it.  This makes a flat area to attach the sock to the legs.

• put the two legs pieces together and hot glue them, leaving a space at the top to add stuffing. 
  •  I actually glued the legs one at a time, let them sit for 2 minutes and then stuffed the leg before gluing the next leg.  
  • I used an unsharpened pencil to poke the stuffing into the leg
        
• If you're hot gluing, do a 2 to 4 inch section at a time (so the glue doesn't harden on you).  
  • The less experienced you are with hot glue, the shorter the section should be.
  • I usually have my daughter use a popsicle stick to press pieces together without getting any of the heated glue on her skin... I just use my fingers.
  • My 9 year old daughter has been able to use my "low temp craft glue gun" with supervision for a couple of years.
    
• Fill with rice or small beans (a funnel or a home made funnel made of paper will help with the pouring).  Sew or glue the hole shut.
      

Printing the Template:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
      

• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).
    
• You need to print both templates

Template

Printable version of these instructions