How to train your plushie dragon?

If this dragon plushie is not scary enough from the outside, it's high time to see its inside!

Don't come any closer!

No matter how scary the dragon is, I loved making it - I felt like an architect or engineer while creating the sewing pattern: which part should go under the other, what to sew first and next, how much to add to the tummy and so on.

First a drawing turned into another drawing, I mean into a sewing pattern

Layers of felt: this is how you can create your own dragon toy

Pretty complicated inside, outside

Ever wanted to turn drawings into soft toys? Think twice :-)

And the result: a tamed custom stuffed dragon

International Women's Day

I know I'm a bit late with this post but yesterday I was busy celebrating... ;-)
Here come some girls and women from all around the world - first of all Beida's pink plush girl, who has flown to Florida:

Beida's custom stuffed doll in pink

And then four and a half year old Maude's birthday plushie to Germany: a little Indian girl with fairy wings - perfect mix, isn't it?

handmade by Maude and me

I like working with kids' drawings, but don't mind at all turning an adult's drawing into a plushie: this time an Asian girl to Singapore with some instructions from the artist: black hair, beige skin, a small body, an orange T-shirt, a pair of shorts and a pair of thongs - softie list ticked off!

this is how you can turn your self-portrait into a custom plushie

Please meet Lidi, a Hungarian girl through her younger sister's eyes - when I saw Lola's drawing, my very first idea was she had drawn a fairy: the girl definitely seems to be flying, don't you agree?!

plush sister coming to life from a drawing

As you can see, Janea's twin girls in Canada are committed Halloween fans. They were longing for two animatronic figures, but their mom thought that two plushies would suit more her 6 year olds. She had hundreds of drawings to choose from :-) So Eamma, the grave watcher and Nursey, the convulsive nurse have been together with the girls since last autumn.

the winner drawings turned into softies

Arlen from Australia is 5 1/2 years old, and she does tons of drawings, but this is her latest and her mom just loves it! She wasn't sure whether the animal was a dog or a cat - in my mind there is no doubt that it is a doggie. Or a cat on a leash... not absolutely impossible... Anyway, it made a pretty custom stuffed animal, no matter what you call it :-)

  See you next Women's Day! Oh no, hopefully much, much sooner! :-)

Alex's anniversary present

What would your first idea be when asked to embroider a "30" on a basketball?

Birthday plushie?!

That it's for a birthday, am I right? Well, I was wrong, 30 is the number of Alex's favourite NBA player :-)

Self-portrait drawing into a plushie

One of the best parts of making this plushie was to create the basketball. First to find out how many pieces should be used to sew this sphere (yes, 8, as a basketball is divided into 8 sections), how to draw them (it's all about some geometry), how to put them together (good old blanket stitches), how to make the ball sturdy enough (I hid a tabletennis ball inside), how to create the black lines (I used very narrow ribbon with Vliesofix), how to add the number "30" (it's embroidered on an elliptic piece of yellow cotton) - and it was just the basketball. I haven't talked about the cap, the trainers, the T-shirt or the jeans. Next time, guys :-)

As I'm not brave enough to turn photos of you into soft toys, but the softie was for a lovely returning customer, so I didn't want to say no, I asked them to turn the photos into drawings first - youngsters use Snapchat to do this :-) And it is a first anniversary gift, so I added Rachel, too:

A first-anniversary softie

 Okay, let's see a close-up:

Alex, Rachel, love

Details:

Details of a soft basketball player

Softie siblings

A Canadian monster and his best dino friend - soft toys for a little boy and his sister.

Brilliant drawings turned into colorful plushies

One by...

One of my favourite custom stuffed monsters :-)

... one

Smile on just one side - the way my co-artist dreamed it

Yorkie softie

Eirik from Norway with his beloved doggie's plushie version.

Eirik, the original drawing, and the plush adaptation

Family Castle

A whole family of seven royal members turned into softies. The original designer is Morgan from the US. Morgan is 6 years old, and she is just learning to read and write, but she has always been a fabulous little artist. She recently drew "Family Castle" with King Pa Pa, Queen May May, Princess Mommy, Prince Daddy, Prince Sawyer, Princess Corley, Princess Megan and Princess Morgan. 

p.s. she says the little guy in the bottom left hand corner is "just a drawing" :-)

Morgan created her own soft family

Most of the time you only see the front of my plushies - anyone interested in the backs of these softies?! :-)

Can you find out who it is?

Custom stuffed family at a photo shooting