Quilting and Homemade Stuffed Animals

Those of you who know me, know I love to make, bake and create. I just can't seem to help it. "Sew" when I saw this little elephant fabric, I thought, "I'd love to make a little stuffed elephant for a friend's baby shower." Of course, I'd never made a stuffed animal before but again I thought, "How hard can it be?" 

Lucky for me, I was thinking in 2D not 3D. If I'd had to make four legs, that would have thrown my making into another dimension entirely...thus, 3D not 2D.

But, if you're like me and have never made a stuffed animal (without a pattern) and you're curious how I did it, just keep reading.

First, I was inspired by this fabric, which I used to make the backside of a baby blanket for my friend's shower.

But like everything I do, inspiration comes from many sources. Do you see the yellow and gray polka dot ear on the front side of the baby blanket? Well, immediately I thought an all gray elephant just wouldn't do. Imagine that. But I was also inspired by Mike Curato's Little Elliot - Big City books.

 I just heard Mike Curato give a presentation in L.A. at the SCBWI Summer Conference. I thought, "I want my little elephant to be all polka dotted--like little Eliott." So I went in search of some more fabric - this time polka dotted. And I figured I only needed about one-fourth a yard for a stuffed animal. 

Then I thought, "I really like the shape of the little gray elephant above." So I drew the shape on a piece of paper (and I'm not an illustrator or an artist) so I drew it lightly, in case I made mistakes (which is super silly because it was paper and I was using a pencil--duh, I could have erased a mistake-but whatever, that's what I did). 

When I got that done, I drew the shape right on the fabric.

Cut it out and laid the front sides together and sewed around the edges. I left a little section open so I could stuff it (I made a mistake here--I left the trunk open to stuff, I should have left a foot open to stuff so it wouldn't be noticed as much--but that's the way I did it.)

After I had him stuffed, I sewed a couple of yellow ears on (because I had some leftover yellow fabric from when I made my Candy Corn Cushions for my benches out in my yard). Then I took some leftover material and braided a tail and sewed those on. But I still needed an eye. I didn't want to sew something on that the baby might pull off and eat so I embroidered a little eyelash around one of the polka dots (on both sides). And Voila...or, as I would say,  Wah-lah!

I had a fun little gift for the baby shower (a baby blanket and a stuffed elephant). 

Let me know if you have made a stuffed animal for a child. I'd love to visit your blog to check it out.

 

Wishing y'all a Spooktacular Fall

Halloween is lurking just like a ghost. . .around the corner. And with so many negative spirits haunting our recent past, I was thinking... (yep, I know that's a surprise) we should do something festive and fun to celebrate the coming holiday.

This is how I've been spending my energy lately...preparing our family's new "Dead and Breakfast"...for any stray ghouls who want to stop by unexpectedly.

And I just had to make a Day of the Dead pumpkin. It was super simple. I painted a regular pumpkin from the garden. Of course, I spent a little extra time trying to pick just the right one.

Then I covered the shell with black paint, which was super simple to do. But you could use the pumpkin in its original shade, or opt for a green or white gourd.

The problem with white gourds for me is that I always envision ghostly images instead...

And I paint those little gourds into characters... hey, did I mention I'm a writer? Characters are always popping into my head and inspiring me...but I digress.

And that was just the beginning. We decided to build our own family graveyard...in the front yard.

And it turned out pretty realistic looking. But then we added our fun sign...

Which I painted on an old piece of wood my husband shaped for me with his jigsaw.

And we  hung it out over the graves. 

But that wasn't enough. We also made a scarecrow.

And a ghostly figure out of chicken wire, which we painted with glow-in-the-dark spray paint.

And hung little scarecrows on the fence, in my little flowerpots. Then I wanted witch brooms to hang more lights. But when I found out how much they cost, I thought, I can make some instead. So, I ran to the local feed store and bought a bale of straw and stopped at a lumber store to buy some dowels. The straw was $11.99 at Side Saddle Tack and the dowels were about $3.00 a piece at Mr. Plywood. So for about $30.00, I got more than enough materials to make 6 brooms. The brooms were really easy to make. I laid out some strapping tape on the bale and placed the straw on the top of the tape and simply rolled  the dowel around the tape. I used a bit of twine and voila! I had my brooms. 

The hardest part of making the brooms was keeping my little Freya (my German Shepherd) busy by throwing her ball for her.

Then we lined the brooms up the walkway and wrapped them in lights.

And at night, they are seriously Spooktacular!

Don't they look like they're on fire? An unexpected scary little touch.

Plus, I hung a beautiful fall wreath on the front door.

And made some candy corn cushions for my benches out front (you can check out my previous post about how I made those but here's a quick picture)

 Or two...

And they're reversible, so I can use them through Thanksgiving. 

Maybe we're getting carried away, but we  keep adding to our display.

I don't know...what do you think?

Anyway, I'm hoping you have a Spooktacular Fall Y'all!!!