Design Your Own Stuffed Toys

Good Wednesday morning to you all! My post is rather late this morning, but I have a really good reason. I’ve been making homemade toys to get ready for Christmas, and I wanted to share these projects with you. I don’t have a scanner, so uploading the patterns I made is rather difficult. In light of that, I came up with a new plan. I decided I’d show you exactly how I design a toy. Sounds easy right? It is!

At 3 am this morning I came up with a new concept for a toy and proceeded to mark it up. All of my toys start on paper first, and then get transfered to pattern fabric, and then.. end up as a finished toy. If I don’t work in that order I’ll loose something that I originally intended to include. I will tell you that sometimes, during creation I modify the patterns or concept and create a completely new toy, but teaching you the basics will get you off and running.

Design Your Own Stuffed Toy

I started this homemade stuffed froggie by folding a piece of printer paper in half,  separating it, and folding my finished piece in half again. I always design on the fold, and design one half of a face. When the face shape is cut out, on the fold the other half appears. I don’t have a steady enough drawing hand to freehand both sides and make them exact.

I use “tools” I have on hand to draw faces into the finished face shape. In this case I used the curved handle on the scissors, a spool of thread and a 1/2 inch pipe fitting. The moral of that story is that anything in your home can be used to construct a face shape.

At this point in the design phase don’t be scared to think outside of the box! Change your mind, and change it again, be daring and do something different. Paper is forgiving, and your scraps can be used for many other crafts.

After I have the face shape just right and the features I like I transfer the whole pattern to pattern fabric. If you don’t have any pattern fabric white cotton works just fine to make reusable patterns. I like fabric toy patterns because they store nicely, and you can reuse them forever. I’ve made paper patterns for toys, but they tear after the second use. After losing a few good toys I avoid using paper patterns at all costs. If paper is all you have, make a master copy of your toy pattern that you don’t use and save it as a backup.

I carefully cut out each feature of a toy pattern from a different fabric. Originally I designed this little guy… to be a girl, with bright pink cheeks. Patrick liked him/her/it so much that I performed an on the spot sex change and lost the pink cheeks

To begin creation I carefully baste around my toy heads by hand and then follow that up with machine stitching. The facial features always go on after the head is stuffed. This is only my personal preference as some doll makers prefer to do it before, but I find that I can make changes in the toy easier if I wait.

As you can see, I embroidered (badly) around the eyes and left him without a mouth or nose. I stuffed him so that he wouldn’t need these features. Once I finished the head I felt bad about leaving him body-less and I had to remedy that.

I gave him a jointed body, and three freckles on his face. Part of the fun in designing your own toys for Christmas, or just because, is that you can always change your mind. In fact, I think that might actually be a requirement. This froggie will go through many transformations in the near future, because he needs playmates. Happy toy making everyone!

P.S. Yes, I know the eye in that picture is upside down. The pupils are pinned on for the picture and will receive an embroidery stitch later today. I didn’t want to go into the old craft room to find the yellow embroidery thread. It’s cold in there!