The Christmas Elf Strikes Again in 2016

I know I don't have to, but each year I try to make something small for the staff at my school to sneak into their mailboxes.  Since there are about 60 in our building, it is sometimes a conundrum trying to come up with something that won't take long and also that won't be that expensive.  

While I've been rearranging my craft space I've come across many things that I had been saving for future projects and as luck would have it, I found a passel of keys that I had asked for when our school changes all the classroom door locks several years ago.  I got this idea from Crafts by Amanda.

I started by having my elf helper-in-residence spray paint them white for me.

Then I took some Posca Pen markers and put faces on them.

I purchased the pompoms (with a coupon) and grabbed a bag of t-shirt scraps cutting them into little scarves.

The pompoms became earmuffs.  Amanda used bits of pipe cleaners for the band part of the earmuffs. I mistakenly picked up a package of sparkly white pipe cleaners which didn't stand out enough against the white snowman and since the opening in my keys was large, it already kind of looked like the connector so I let it go at that.  (I'm thinking now that I could have used a paint marker to make it a darker color, but then again, that would have taken more time and effort.)

Lastly, I raided my ribbon supply and gave them hangers. 

The Christmas elf also likes to send a little something to the secretaries and clerks in the district.  And again, cleaning the craft space made me realize that I have way too much paper hoarded, so I looked for a quick paper project.  

I raided my Christmas paper box and cut several sheets of paper into 2 1/2" squares.  I also cut 1 1/4" squares from red card stock.  I needed 18 of these, but they went quickly.

Each 2 1/2" square was folder first diagonally, turned over and then folded in quarters on the opposite side.  I glued 5 of these folded squares together on the square sides.  I added a length of ribbon to the opened end of each outside corner and then covered the ribbon and that square with the red cardstock.

The only thing that I purchased for these was the beads and they were on a 70% off sale this month.  I slid a glass bead down the length of folded ribbon to the top of the square and then put a knot in the top of the ribbon so the bead would not slide off.

Here they are all folded up.  I wrote Merry Christmas on the red squares.

I slide these each into an individual envelope labeled as follows:

Slide bead up and stop at knot

Bring two red ends around to kiss

Slide bead down and stop at top

Now you are a star at this!

(I tested the directions on HWNSNBP and he got it so I knew they would.)

When you follow the directions you get a paper star ornament.