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

Hippo plushie remade

Though most of my plushies are custom made animals or dolls, I sometimes get requests to replace a lost soft toy. And I sometimes say yes. This is what happened when I read Arnna's letter: even if I hadn't liked the original hippo, I couldn't have refused to sew this hippo softie because Arnna's email was so heartfelt:)

A lost hippo plushie reborn

Arnna allowed me to quote from her letter (the original hippo was bought from a small back street store in a small town in New Zealand, and the family have searched the world for a replacement...)

"My son was three months old and eldest sister bought him his first Christmas present (all of the age of four).  Hippo was born.  He has painted the fence, been to kindergarten, ridden bikes and never been far from our son.  Hippo left the shores of New Zealand and travelled to the Middle East two years ago.  On a weekend to Dubai, Hippo went on his own adventure and we haven’t been able to find him.  Our son has cried for months and months since.  We have been back to the hotel, every stop we visited at and offered a reward wherever we can think.   He has not been found.  We are one year and two months since Hippo took his own OE and we still have tears.  He is a link to our home country.  We haven’t visited for over two years.  Our son is nine, growing up but a real softie at heart."

Is there anyone among you who would have been able to say no...? ;-)

The shoo-in of soft toy markets

What do you think the most popular custom stuffed animal has been during my softiemaker career? Sorry, just a single guess, trust me, that's enough ;-) Yes, the correct answer is CATS!

Cory's Magical Cat softie - Cory is 7, the cat has is eternal

But why do so many kids draw cats, why are cat pics and videos so popular, why do people love the idea of going to a café where they can spend time surrounded by cats? Why...?

All cat owners know the answer: cats are cute, funny, beautiful and it feels so good to stroke their velvety fur... So why should kids resist their cuteness? :-)

There's a café in my street - you can see the big cat in the shopwindow :-)

Well, I admit this cat looks not so cute at first sight... but what if you have one more look at it? :-)

Custom plushies' hard life... not very happy about the photo shooting... luckily Keira, the designer was much more pleased with her drawing turned into a 3D toy

Karina's plushie in a much, much softer mood :-)

FirkaBaba Workshop

A post in Hungarian - still kids' drawings, but something new! I've started workshopping with children: we turn their drawings on textile into soft toys. It's so much fun... :-)

Turning kids' drawings into soft toys at my workshop

2011 óta fordítom le gyerekek rajzait 3D-re. Szeretem. Izgalmas a gyerekrajzokkal dolgozni, annyira különlegesek, színesek, tele vannak ötlettel - néha törhetem is a fejem, hogy megoldást találjak egy-egy részletre.

De szeretem a gyerekrajzokat úgy is, ahogy vannak, és nem akarom "elrontani" a műveket azzal, hogy 3D-ben tökéletesre varrom őket. Egyszercsak jött az ötlet, hogy kipróbáljak valami újat: egy workshopot, ahol a gyerekek egyből textilre rajzolják a művüket, én meg hátlapot varrok hozzá, kitömjük, bevarrjuk, és vihetik is haza a saját firkababájukat, firkaszívüket, firkacicájukat!

A firkababák születése is rajzolással kezdődik

A firkababa mellé mindenki kap egy névcímkét is, amit belevarrunk a firkababa oldalába:

A megfelelő névcímke megtalálása időt igényel:)

Konzultálunk

Akinek kedve tartja, dekorálhatja a rajzát színes, vasalható strasszal, pici pompommal, masnival, de vasalhatunk a jószágoknak csillogó fekete szemeket is!

Válogatunk, vágunk, varrunk - készülnek a firkababák

A végeredmény egy puha firkababa, amivel már aznap lehet játszani, vagy este aludni! :-)

Jönnél te is? Ezen az email címen érdeklődhetsz a workshopok időpontjairól: firkababa@gmail.com

Egy boldog firkababa tulajdonos

Indulás haza a művekkel - viszlát legközelebb! :-)

Hard as snails

"What rhymes with snail?"

First steps first

Yes, you can find an answer to this question on the web... carefully listed words with one, two or three syllables or even rhyming phrases for snail! These are my favourite ones, but it would take time for me to write a poem using them:

Still a drawing - but not for long

snail - like a beached whale

snail - coffin nail

Snail longing for spring

But let's get back to my snail, drawn by Daniella - the most colourful snail I've ever been mailed (did you notice the rhyme...?):

Slim soft snail sitting on a sofa

Softies humanized

"Neither humans, nor animals" - this is what the file is entitled in which I collect these plushies: objects, vegetables etc. with a face.

The eights were turned into soft toys for Andy's City Apartments in Milton Keynes:

three times eight is equal with how many plushies...?

But before all of them I created their plush plumber fellow:

a stuffed plumber with plush tools

An example that you can create your own toy even if you are an adult: Band-Aid Man was one of the funniest requests I've ever had - a softie ordered by a fantastic mom for her grown-up daughter:

custom Band-Aid plush with limbs of course

I don't know many French words, but I learnt "biberon" for a lifetime when I was turning this drawing into a plushie:

plush biberon to comfort a little boy

"Marker" was a big love of mine! You might think there is nothing special about him, but look, what Gretchen's mom wrote about him to me:

"This is a picture of Marker.  Marker is a marker.  :)  He is always purple - in the attached picture, he looks a little faded - but usually he's very purple - I think her real markers are getting dried out from over-use.  Marker is the star of all of Gretchen's books and stories.  She draws him everywhere.  He has a whole Marker family, and his friends include Eraser and Big Fat Whiteboard.  His body is always square-ish, with a round top.  His outline is always black, too."

So it was quite obvious that Marker should be born as a soft toy version.

What's more, Gretchen also makes videos starring Marker! Do not hesitate to watch one of them! This one for example :-)

Marker drawn and explained and sewn into a plushie

 
 
Jacques in a Smock is also a star, he's the main character of a children's book written by a father for his daughters:

artist's drawing into a 3D artist

Cranky and Grumpy live their lives in a theatre in New York, quite surprisingly called Sour Grapes Productions. They travelled a lot between Europe and America thanks to hidden secrets of mysterious postal services: they crossed the ocean three times...

custom stuffed fruits

Vampire Bat Kitty and Others

Imaginary creatures – well, yes, the dino is the odd one out, but it was designed by the brother of Olive, who drew the beautiful, stripy, 3-eyed monster, so for their sake dinos are welcome in this post, too.

You know custom softies can’t compete with mass-produced plushies – regarding their price. Because it takes long hours, sometimes even days to turn your kid's drawing into a custom plushie. I sometimes spend lots of time searching for the perfect material or accessories, sometimes it is necessary to make a proto-softie first, sometimes I feel I should resew this or that to get the result I am satisfied with. That’s why these one-of-a-kind toys are not cheap. But sometimes I can’t resist to create a plushie – that’s what happened with the beautiful monster. Olive’s mom is an independent artist in Canada, who completely understood why the softie would cost the price I had given in the quote, but she couldn’t afford it. I was longing to work with this fantastic drawing so much that I gave some discount and we changed the deadline, so the softie could be born :-) Together with Olive’s brother’s dino :-)

Harmless plush monster together with a happy dino

The fluffy Vampire-Bat-Kitty went to scare people in Germany:

Vampire Bat Kitty - not only kids wish to see their ideas turned into custom plushies

Helena’s mom once saw a softie of mine which was made with a special crayon-technique, and she imagined the same style for the „A” softie – this time I was quite lucky to find the necessary crayons in a shop in Budapest, though earlier I had to order them from abroad. I loved the rainbow spikes… :-)

There's no limit when creating your own toy:)

Bonus... :-) The other "crayoned" softie, a rabbit called Hattie:

A special drawing, a book illustration reborn as a soft toy

 

Softies again

Return of a lazy blogger but diligent plushie-maker...

Let's start with some portraits and self-portraits!
Let me be a bit partial, so first please meet Rachel from Hungary:

Never too late to make a soft toy from your kid's drawing - it's a 21th birthday gift!

And this is a mom with her son from Mexico (I was sent a photo of the plushies sitting on a shelf in their final home):

Custom stuffed mom and son

Three-year-old Emmie is a colorful personality from the US, and I loved working with her drawing:

I was asked to add arms and legs to Emmie's stick figure

An Australian mom asked me to go crazy regarding the colors when turning her son's drawing into a doll:

the mom seems to be happy with the result :-)

And finally a soft self-portrait with a plush car! Any questions..? Why not with a car?! :-) 

How to make your self-portrait drawing into a unique art of work!

As you can see, Ryan, who drew the self-portrait above is not kidding: let there be cars everywhere!

Softies at home - with even more cars...

Surprised that Ryan created both his toys with an additional car...?

Robots, monsters and other strange creatures

When you don't post for a long time, you can allow yourself to dedicate a whole post to partly or not-at-all human softies. 

These robots went to a school in Australia:

This smiling one has long been living with Alec in the Netherlands:

Alec's custom stuffed robot plushie with his signature on the back

Alec is the designer of this other creature, too - and he was only four when he drew the green and orange alien!

This drawing was easier to be turned into a pillow - too many arms... :-)

Sewing Meyer's (6) Robot Monster was a therapy - I loved the rhythm of colours and the accuracy of his design.

This carefully designed drawing was a pleasure to sew into a toy!

Kid's drawing, but made with a special drawing programme - Molly's Blue Man from Norway:

Strong soft guy

A softie for a husband's 35th birthday - he drew it when he was a child. M-80 explosive in one hand, heart in the other one - any idea what it means..?

A childhood drawing kept for decades - and finally born as a 3D softie

"Monster in crayon" - that's the title of this beloved monster, which was sent to 5-year-old Jason to Australia:

And another therapeutical softie for me, hand-sewn dragon monster for Jaden in the US. Hand stitches make me feel good... :-)

A cat again

I should make a survey to find out what the most popular animal is - not impossible that it is cats...

This time 5-year-old Miya's drawing, the multibrown cat turned into a stuffed, chubby kitty- special edition/addition: a birthday certificate!

Hi everyone, I'm a new-born soft kitty toy!