giving: a canvas wall caddy.

In today’s handmade gift guide, a few favorite ideas for making canvas wall caddies and offering them as a handmade gift during the holidays, or anytime…

A little kit for making:

If you’re not up to the task of making the caddies and offering them yourself, or you know someone who would love the chance to try them for themselves, offer the supplies in a cloth bulk bag and give the gift of a neat little kit. All you need is the fabric, some pins, needle and thread, a wooden dowel and some string for hanging. Add a link or search instructions for our canvas wall caddy tutorial, and you’ll have given everything your loved one needs to practice a new craft and end up with a caddy of their own making.

A crafter’s caddy:

For the crafter in your life who needs a place to wrangle their most-used supplies, tuck in favorite essentials like clothespins and twill tape, and a handsome stapler. Add a handmade matchbook sketchpad and few favorite pens. If you’d like to make it extra special, tuck in a handmade envelope with a certificate to take a class online or IRL at local-to-you places like BKLYN CLAY or the Textile Arts Center.

A kitchen caddy:

For someone needing a little help in the kitchen, consider this a spot for favorite essentials: tuck in a little bundle of homemade beeswax wraps, a stack of cloth coasters, a ball of kitchen twine from a zero-waste shop like Fill More Waste Less, a favorite dishtowel like the Jenn kitchen cloth from Fog Linen, and a special pantry staple like this beautiful Palestinian Freekeh from Canaan. Add a classic wooden spoon, a beautiful set of chopsticks, or anything else you’d like!

A sweet dreams caddy:

Tuck in a few special things for helping along bedtime, including a sweet linen teddy bear from Salter House, a trio of essential oil rollers from Storq (use the code ERIN20 to receive 20% off on everything site wide save the bundles!), a handmade hair bow and pom-poms (more soon!), and a notebook for jotting down dreams. Adjust the size of the bottom pocket and skip the middle seam and you’ll have space enough to slip a new bedtime story like A Life Made By Hand: The Story of Ruth Asawa, a favorite of Rose’s.

A kid’s craft caddy:

For this caddy, we lengthened the pockets on the original tutorial and omitted all of the center seams to get three big pockets for tucking in oversized magazines, sketchpads, kid art, et cetera! For kid crafters on your gift giving list, consider a subscription (or single issue!) to the truly magical Illustoria Magazine (or to any of our other favorite kids’ mags), tuck in a set of colored pencils like the skin tone set from Lyra, a drawing pad like this beauty from Yoseka Stationery, and a little cardboard creation or kumihimo loom of your own making.

An advent caddy:

You asked for it, we’re on it! We’ll share the full tutorial with instructions for turning our basic canvas caddy into an advent calendar canvas caddy early next week…but here’s a little tease to whet your appetite in the meantime!

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For the past few years, Rose Pearlman and I have been collaborating on simple, useful craft projects made from humble materials that can serve a practical purpose in your home. In celebration of our past work, we’ve designed a series of holiday gift guides that showcase just some of the ways that these humble crafts can become a part of a special holiday gift—or simply be the gift itself.

This post includes affiliate links to online shops. Reading My Tea Leaves might earn a small commission on the goods purchased through those links, but most of these supplies can be found locally right in your own community. If you’d like to support this site directly, you can contribute directly here. Thanks so much for supporting this work.