It's a squirrel plush (not a cat:-))

The remark in the title was unnecessary of course, everybody can see it IS a squirrel! :-) But Joris is a thorough young man, as you can see from his other comments in the drawing as well.

A drawing turned into a custom plushie with a little help from the designer

This squirrel is really special to Joris. It was the first character he started to draw when he was a kid. He wanted to teach himself to draw and saw this cartoon called "Screwball Squirrel" on TV, and since then he has been drawing the same squirrel again and again. He is 28 now, and when he gets a bit distracted or simply starts daydreaming, he still draws the squirrel unconsciously. These hundreds of squirrel drawings were turned into a one and only custom plushie.

I usually get nice reactions from my customers on seeing their designs made into soft toys, but the words from Joris made me really happy: "Wooooowwwww!!! It's so amazing, I can't describe how much I like it, it's much much much better than I ever could imagine. Emese, I can't thank you enough, you've made me so incredibly happy :) I'm blown away.....this squirrel I've drawn for so many years has now stepped of the paper and become something real. Thank you again!"

Spring plushies

First of all a custom stuffed doll for Maia - when the softie arrived, her mom overheard Maia walking around with the doll saying "I love my doll, I love my doll.":-))))

I love copying the details of a drawing as precisely as possible

This commission was placed by a friend of Maia's family from Luxemburg, but the doll was delivered to the US. The lady in Luxemburg was quite sad about the fact that she wouldn't be able to see the doll in flesh.... So I decided to make a little compensation for her: a greeting card with Maia's drawing.

This time the drawing was turned not only into a custom plushie but into a unique card as well

And the next soft toy is a giraffe to Hong Kong. I counted the exclamation marks in the email about the plushie's arrival - there were 8 of them...:)

Josephine's drawing was not a simple one - but even the most complicated drawing can be turned into a plush version! :-)

Some little extras:

A soft toy's way from the beginning to the end

Finally Lilly's custom stuffed doll, the Austrian princess softie and her plush doggie Swiffer:

Lilly Princess softie and her soft companion

Poppy in heaven

Poppy was the name of Olivia's grandfather, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly some weeks ago. Olivia (she is 5 years old) drew this picture of him in heaven, and her mom asked me to turn the drawing into a soft toy, hoping it would be a healing present to help her with her sadness.

Custom stuffed grandpa doll to give comfort

The only comment of Olivia's mom was to point out the black on top of his head was in fact a hat- Poppy always wore a hat, so that was an important component...

Olivia's grandpa

It may seem strange to some of you that a custom doll like this can give comfort to a little girl. But I'm sure mothers know what's best for their kids. You know the strange thing is, that the week I received the email of Olivia's mom, I had almost the same request from an old customer of mine: she wants me to make grandpa plushies for her daughters, because their grandpa is very ill, and she hopes the softies will comfort the girls when their beloved grandpa passes. Softie making is not always just joy and happiness...

Norwegian wild cat softened into plushie

Marianne's son is already 14, and he loves drawing, but this special drawing was made by him more than 10 years ago - since then it has been hanging in their hall! So it is not surprising at all that Marianne thought this custom stuffed cat would be the perfect gift for his confirmation.

A ten-year-old drawing turned into a brand new soft toy

You know it is the kind of drawing that makes me smile immediately. Kids are such great artists and toy designers - let them create their own toys ;-)

Get a closer look at the happy face and hairs

p.s. Some absolutely non-softie related topic: when I was thinking about the title of this post, "Norwegian cat" was my very first idea - and I couldn't help thinking of my years at secondary school. My English teacher played the guitar and there were lessons when were just singing. He taught us lots of songs and one of them was "Norwegian Wood" by The Beatles. Let's admit it was a strange choice but I still remember the song and I love it. And I had another English teacher who played the guitar and sang beautifully...:) I often went to concerts of his band, and he was an important person in my life at that time. But he chose to live in Canada decades ago, so we don't often meet. Now he is at home again, and I was invited to his concert last night. And no matter how many years have passed, his voice is still the same:-)

Well, that much about me and English teachers and music...

Feel like listening to "Norwegian Wood"? Click on it: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY5i4-rWh44&feature=kp

Nobody doll

Erin's daughter's favourite book is about a little girl with "nobody to keep her company", so her mother makes her a "nobody" doll for her birthday.  This new "nobody softie" was made for Erin's little daughter, who celeberates her 4th birthday in July.

You know my opinion about copyright: I need a permission to work with others' ideas. And Erin asked for the author's permission to use the illustration from the book:) Patience Brewster, the author says that they used to make these dolls, and she is happy to hear that someone is still reading Nobody and that a little girl loves her story so much that she wanted her own Nobody doll.

Régi mese, új baba. Erin kislánya annyira szereti ezt a történetet, hogy a mamája megszerezte az írónő engedélyét, hogy használhassuk a könyv illusztrációját. És született egy Nobody-baba.

Mother's Day

When a father and son cooperates, the result is a Mother's Day softie.

The drawing was made long, long years ago... Can you imagine how meaningful it must be for a mom if it was chosen by his husband and son to be turned into a surprise softie for her..?

 

Kék-fehér firkaember egy texasi mamának Anyák napjára.

Gigi's dog

Gigi is 7 years old and she is obsessed with dogs, but she can't have one until she is older. Luckily she was told that a cuddly was okay! So her aunt asked me to turn this drawing into a softie. Gigi's family would have been happy to see another of her artworks as a softie, because she draws much more spectacular and colourful pictures, but they were nice enough to respect Gigi's choice - she was adamant that this was the one she wanted: a plucky brown doggie with pink details.

Gigi kutyája 4 különböző lábon áll, egyforma füleket hegyez, rózsaszín szemekkel szemez.

Self-portrait

Not mine, of course!:) Four-year-old Marlowe created her self-portrait at school, and now she can introduce the 3D version to her original work of art.

Little secrets of how things happen on my desk: Marlowe's mom imagined a more or less 2D softie with dotted or striped back. And I said yes. But when I started working on the doll, all my ideas were 3D........ it was late night, I couldn't ask her if she agreed to change the original idea, so I took a deep breath and followed my instincts, and sewed the softie in 3D. It was almost finished, when all of a sudden came the idea of a little bow in Marlowe's hair - just to keep the idea of dottedness (does this word exist...?) and it reminded me of the flower in the picture I had about the wall at school with Marlowe's painting on it. What a relief it was, when her mom said she liked this version. And look what else she wrote to me :-))):

"I love it!!!  Thank you so much. I love the bow.  Marlowe actually wears a bow in her hair exactly like that each day."

Svájci önarckép masnival, pontosan tíz ujjal (a ciklámen dudorkák nem azok:-)), 3D szempillákkal.

White rabbit

Ingredients:
- a boy in love in Columbia
- a girl being loved in Italy
- a couple of softies made with love in Hungary.

Perfect international love triangle, isn't it? :-)

p.s. the doodles were made by Cristina, of course!

I was asked to make a finger puppet as well: a combination of Cristina's girl doodle, the puppets in the pic and clothes from a photo of Cristina

Megrendelő Kolumbiából, megajándékozott Olaszországban. A megrendelő megkért, csomagoljam csinosan a firkalényeket, de az ő nevét ne írjam rá a csomagra - gondolom, Cristina egyből tudni fogja, kinek köszönheti a meglepetést:-)

Avatar

Sebi (who is 11 years old) painted his Avatar from Minecraft. And his aunt wanted to make him happy. Aunts can be divided into two groups: 1. softiemaker aunts (like me); 2. non-softiemaker aunts (like Sebi's aunt). Non-softiemaker aunts don't usually give up their ideas, so the really devoted ones find an aunt from group No1, and ask her to turn their nephew's drawing into 3D - that's exactly what Sebi's aunt did :)

This is a big, half a meter tall Avatar:

Jólöltözött firka-Avatar Sebinek.