Axolotl Plushie

"I am cute!!!"



Now this was a Christmas present I made. I was very eager to keep it for myself when it was done, but I gave it away in the end XD

Things you need:
- paper for a pattern
- fabric for the body and the dorsal fin (or whatever that is)
- yarn (don't use cotton! I did...)
- fuzzy wool for the gill rakers
- eyes
- stuffing

Basically I just made a pattern out of copy paper and newspapers based on some axolotl pictures I found.
I bought some really nice and fuzzy fake velours leather and used it for most of the plushie.



I bought cotton yarn, but that was not a good idea since it's not very tear-proof. I noticed that during the stuffing process. So maybe you better stick with synthetic yarn.

After cutting out all the pieces I made the gills from small fabric straps and added the gill rakers by attaching some fuzzy wool at the sides.

The rest is basically just thinking about in which order to sew the parts together.



Axolotl picture taken from here.

Be sure to leave a hole through which you can stuff in the stuffing. I'm still not too good at that. Somehow it never becomes a really smooth stuffing, some parts are always crumbling together. Oh well...



Anyway, this is it!

You know you can never grow too old for plushies. Follow me

It's just a piece of cake!

Hello fellows, here comes a very sweeeeet possibility to create a present for your loved ones (if they like sweet things, of course).

I took a photo of the pattern I used and tried to mark it for better understanding. Sitting at my parents home I can't use another program to draw on the computer, which would not be any better, anyways. >D
(click to enlarge)
I acutally used a pattern, decembersong got from some friends a little while ago. It was a Japanese handicraft box including the pattern plus felt.

So this is what you need:
the pattern
different colours of felt
some wad/cotton wool for making plushies, e. g.
scissors
needle/s and threads in matching colours
maybe some glue

I used
middle brown as 1st dough colour
light violet as 2nd dough colour
white for the cream topping
dark violet and light violet for the blueberry
red for the strawberry
light and dark green for the leaves

First, cut out all the patterns. Then start sewing the side parts of the cake. Sew the part of the 1st dough colour with the gaps and the littler 2nd dough part together using a thread coloured like the 1st dough. Sew the side parts on the side where the gaps are, together. You may add some little dots in a different (darker) thread-colour onto the the 2nd dough colour to make it look like there were pieces of fruit in it.
When finished attach the side parts to the bottom part, then add the back part (it's the biggest square on the pattern labelled 1st dough colour, 1x).
Start sewing the top part onto the cake, but leave a little part of it open to fill in the wad, until it's a puffy piece of cake, then close the gap.

Now you can start making the decoration:
Use some yellow thread to apply little dots on the red strawberry felt, then loosely sew a thread through the round part of it. Leave some thread at the end and don't make a knot. Then bend the felt, so it looks like a little cone and sew the straight parts together. After that stuff some wad into the cone and pull on the thread you left at the round part of the strawberry, it will kind of riffle right now and close around the wad. Pull tightly and then sew through the bottom part of the strawberry to ensure that it won't open again.Now attach the strawberry leaf with green thread.

For making the blueberries, cut the cross in the middle of the bigger circle, then sew or glue the little circle onto it. Now sew a loose thread round the edges of the bigger circles each and leave some at the end, not making a knot again. Fill in some wad and pull the thread like you did with the strawberry.
For the little leaves use some lighter or darker thread to sew a line on them, so it looks like a leaf vein, then attach them to the blueberries.

Now you have to sew the cream topping. Sew 3 of the drop-shaped white felt parts together by sewing a line from one end to the other. Then add one of the 3 "half-drops" at the top. I guess you will have to twitch a little until it looks nice.

When finished, add the decoration to the top of the piece of cake.
First, sew the cream topping onto the back edge of the white cream top part. Then place the strawberry and the blueberries in the middle.

Tadaaa~ finished.
You can either give this away as a present or decorate your home with it. :)

Here you can see the cake, decembersong sewed:




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Paper Butterfly Collection

Very animal-friendly :D



Things you need:

- butterfly stamp
- magazines
- a frame
- paper


I got the idea from this blog and wanted to make one myself.

So I ordered a butterfly stamp from ebay and bought a colourful girlie magazine (and felt quite ashamed for it).



Then I just stamped out about 60 butterflies. I only needed fifty for the collection, but it is always nice when you can choose.



I bought the beautiful frame at Xenos (sadly it is made of plastic and while trying to clean the fake glass it [the glass] broke and gave me a nice and clean deep cut in my finger :'D).

Now it's a nice decoration for my mirror corner.




It's a very fast and easy one-evening-project. Try it! Follow me

Book Decoration (Paper Craft)

More paper crafting!



This time I decided to start a larger project I had in mind for a while - a photo book. Have I thought this through thoroughly? I don't think so. That's why I bought a sketch book and some paper crafting paper and simply started. I wonder how many photos I will be able to put onto the pages before I won't be able to close it anymore... oh well.

However, the decoration at the outside of the book is the smaller part which I would like to present here.

All you need:
- a book
- paper crafting paper, napkins, whatever
- special glue lacquer for paper crafting/décopatch
- book corners or better (see below)
- scissors, brushes
- transparent glue, depending on your kind of book corners
- acrylic colours (maybe)

Here's my stuff. I used more graphic45 paper, including the leftovers from the cardboard box project.


At first I painted the black book with acrylic paints in a dark turquoise/blue/brown mix and added some golden highlights. I thought it would fit the overall colouring of the crafting paper motives better. Of course you can skip that part.
There is not much to say about the process of cutting out paper and creating a design that fits your taste. Anyway, the designs were already so beautiful that the result could scarcely look bad, all I had to do was trying to keep a balance between the different objects. Remember to apply the lacquer underneath and on top of the paper.

The result:





I went shopping for some nice and fancy book corners, but I found only some plain and boring ones. Then I remembered how Glittermuffin once used some metal jewellery to create a kind of fake book corners. I liked the idea, so I bought a pair of cheap and very thin metal earrings, cut them apart with a normal pair of scissors and glued them onto the corners with a transparent glue.





That's it. Happy 2nd December!
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