Archive for Plush Art

Snowman Made from a Sock

{ February 7, 2011 @ 8:43 pm } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Plush Art }
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Every year I do this project with my preschoolers, always to roaringly positive critical acclaim. The kids love this (and it’s relatively easy).

Here’s how you do it!

The supply list consists of ten items:

  • plain white socks (any size will do, but I use ankle sized or smaller)
  • rubber bands (three per snowman)
  • a few orange pipe cleaners cut to 3/4″ lengths
  • glue gun
  • white bottled glue (I like to put it in a little cup with a craft stick, but that’s not necessary)
  • round sequins for eyes (black fish tank pebbles also work well)
  • flat buttons (the ones pictured are star-shaped, in case you’re wondering)
  • pom poms
  • dried pinto beans (I use two lbs for a class of twenty)
  • cotton balls

And the process is as follows:

Gather your supplies.
Have the child put about ten handfuls of beans into the sock. Supervise closely! I have them keep the sock over the beans in a large hat box.
The first segment should be a little smaller than a tennis ball. Wrap a rubber band tightly around the sock above the beans and have the child repeat the process to make two round segments.

After you’ve rubber banded the second segment, have the child put about five cotton balls in the top. Wrap a third rubber band around that, leaving as much of the neck of the sock free as possible.
It should look like this now. Fold the open top of the sock down to look like a knit cap, and have the child glue on the eyes, buttons, nose and pom pom with white glue. Remember to glop a lot of glue on if you’re using heavier buttons and things.

Put some hot glue around the rubber bands that connect the body segments. Done!

My colleagues have done this many different ways, with different levels of student involvement. Some like to put all the beans in for the kids, some use rice, some do all the gluing with a hot glue gun, etc. The point is, the process is easy to vary, depending on what your kids can handle and how much you’re willing to do for them. I can do three or four kids at a time like this, at an average of fifteen minutes per group, and I like this method because it involves them doing most of it themselves. Whatever floats your boat.

Hope you have fun!
PS- Leave a comment below and tell me what you think. I know there are a lot of different ways to make this project, and I’d love to see what different people out there are doing.

Owl Purse

{ July 14, 2010 @ 3:53 pm } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Plush Art, Sewing }
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I’ve finished the owl purse- I patterned him after the first owl I made, but I would like to do a few more in black white and red themes. Maybe do some in orange. This was my first attempt at installing a zipper in something, and I’m not sure I did it correctly. You have to hold the sides of the material to pull it open and shut. Next time I do this, I will concentrate on making it more secure; I’ve noticed my biggest problem in this was sturdiness. Nonetheless, I’m pleased with it overall and intend to give him to my Korean teacher as a b-day gift. I think the next thing I want to make will be a crab or a snail or maybe a turtle.

The Pig is Done. Phew.

{ July 5, 2010 @ 5:34 pm } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Plush Art, Sewing }
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oink oink

I’m so glad I finished this thing! I thought it would be as easy as 1-2-3, and now I’m feeling a little foolish about my initial optimism. I wanted this to be a project that I could do with a friend, but now I am rethinking the difficulty level. I have a few (hopefully) improved engineering ideas that should make this a much more realistic rainy day craft. We’ll see if I can squeeze out a workable prototype.

Anyway, here are a few shots of the completed piggy purse.

The front.
The underside of the ears.

The back.

I stitched a couple magnets into the liner to close the purse. It seemed simpler than a zipper, but in retrospect it's clumsier and probably just as difficult to do. I think in the future I would stick to zippers on an item this small.

Some progress pics and my table saw

{ June 30, 2010 @ 11:03 pm } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Plush Art, Sewing }
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The polka-dot fabric is for the liner and wrist strap.

The pig is not yet finished. Sad thing- I was hoping he’d be done by now, but here are a few shots of the current status. The nose was pretty tricky and took me quite a while. I embroidered the nostrils on the front. Embroidered nostrils. Isn’t that charming? I will need to figure out what to do for the eyes- I still haven’t decided, and the fullness of time is come. The eyes need to go on now, and I don’t know what kind of material to use to make them. I also need to get a ring for the wrist strap.

With the embroidery done, I took an inverted strip of the pink fabric, folded one of the short ends to make a nice, clean seam, and matched the edges. I stitched on the line all the way around and it was a quite a pain.

The snout is complete.

In between pig sewing, I got my table saw put together. Here it is, just waiting to do great things.

A Pig Purse is in the works.

{ June 29, 2010 @ 6:11 pm } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Plush Art, Sewing }
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I’m working on this right now- hope to have a finished product tomorrow. A friend asked me for some ideas on a sewing project, and after a little back and forth emailing and brainstorming together, this coin purse shaped like a pig was born. As far as I can see, the process should work, but I’ll find out once I start sewing, I guess. I’m washing some fabric now. I plan on having four different colors on this.

The pig purse! I probably will forgo the zipper; I'm considering using magnets instead.

The preliminary pattern. I included eyes, but I might use buttons for them. Also, I left out the wrist strap. I should make a pattern for that before this is done.

Plush Birdie

{ May 27, 2010 @ 12:34 am } · { Art, Crafty Stuff, Plush Art, Sewing }
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Chirp!

Tweet!

Finished this today! Yay for me (us- this was a joint project). The girl who made this with me is going to keep it, and now I’m thinking I wanna make another one… This was fun. Challenging, but fun, and now I think I know a little better what it should look like and organized it a little better. You can download a PDF of the instructions and patterns by CLICKING HERE.

I just noticed that random question mark on the disclaimer. Don't ask me what it means. It's late right now.

I just realized something I forgot in the directions- you gotta weight this guy’s butt down- his head is too heavy otherwise. I used a couple stainless steel bolts packed into the tail.