The ambitions of a Preppie

I was on school pick up duty yesterday. I only live about 500m from school, but it takes me about 15 minutes to walk there and another 15 minutes to walk back.

So I picked up Moo from his classroom, and for the entire 15 minute walk home he told me everything that he would like me to make for him. He didn't even stop and draw breath. He truly believes that I can make anything and everything. It's so darn sweet!

We had about an hour before he had to go home. He desperately wanted me to make him a Dinosaur Pillow Pet. I desperately wanted to play Jenga.

We compromised and decided to draw a sketch of a dinosaur that we could make into a mini softie.

We used Crayola fabric markers on calico. Super simple and extremely quick!

I think he loves him.

My Creative Space & A Book Launch

In my creative space today is a project that I was supposed to get finished yesterday, instead of spending the entire day faffing around (somewhat due to my lack of patience and interest in computer hardware).... Oh, yes, and I  might have gone out to have lunch at a nice little cafe too.

But anyway, I digress....this is going to be my Softie for Mirabel. It's just a simple little fuzzy bear softie that I designed yonks ago to use for Toy Society drops.

I had grand plans of having a proper tutorial written for making him, but I'm not going to have time, so I'm just going to share my pattern, and some super basic instructions. You can download a pdf copy here if you're interested, or I've also added links via my tutorial page.
It was written in a huge hurry so if there are any glaring errors, I'm apologising in advance!

Lovely photo used courtesy of Kate

In other crafty news, I was very lucky to be able to go along to Pips book launch for Sew La Tea Do on Tuesday night. I forgot to take my camera, so lets just pretend that Pip is signing my copy of her lovely book in this photo, shall we.....


The home of My Creative Space....

Alter-Ego Road Trip

The Supasel softie headed off on a road trip on the weekend...... all the way to the country.
Safety is the number one priority when travelling.

She was handed over from the giver to the receiver.

It looks like mum thought the joke was pretty darn funny!

Alter-Ego

Meet SupaSel
She's just a big softie at heart (lame craft joke sorry).

Sweet and funny and whispering sweet nothings???

or Weird and freaky and telling tall tales???


If you'd like to make your own, it was really very simple.


I took a close-up facial photo, and then printed it to the necessary size using ink-jet printable fabric. 
After printing, I colour highlighted the features such as the eyes and the lips using fabric marker textas that I picked up at Officeworks, to make the photo look more doll-like. You could also do this in photoshop if you're a whizz (I'm not).

When cutting out the face, make sure to leave yourself a seam allowance all the way around. I made my own template for the body and arms and legs (which is why they're really out of proportion).


I used ric-rac sewn into the head seam for hair, and hand stitched some handbag rings onto the side of her head for earrings. Of course, omit the buttons and earrings if you need it to be baby/toddler safe.

My Creative Space... or welcome to WIP world

Everything is just slightly chaotic in my creative space this week....

I seem to have lots of projects on the go, all in a similar state of unfinishedness.

The dress, arms, and legs above are for a softie that I'm making for mum for mothers day, on behalf of my little sister. When we visited last week, Sel was teasing that there weren't enough happy snaps of herself dotted around mums new cottage. We were trying to hatch a plan of making some sort of cardboard cutout when Liesl came up with lightbulb moment suggestion of making a softie.

I bought myself some ink-jet printable fabric, and I'm going to print a photo of Sels face to make the head of the softie. I'm hoping that mum thinks it's as hilarious as we do!

I'm also still working on a little DS pouch that I started last weekend. A friends little boy is having a birthday party on Saturday and his main present from his parents is going to be a DS Lite.

I've added some heavy wadding to the inside in case of accidents...

.....and a tab with a D-ring, to attach a little lanyard that I whipped up in the same cute cogs fabric.

I just need to make the inside of the pouch (if I can remember the original dimensions as I didn't write it down as I was working...aaaagghhhhh).

Here's hoping that I get them finished today!


As always, make sure to visit the mighty linky list over at Kirsty's place

It's a Toy Society Christmas

I just love The Toy Society.

The whole concept of dropping a toy for some unsuspecting passerby to find, fills my heart with glee. It's been far too long since I played along, and so the worldwide christmas drop was the perfect thing to get me back into the swing!

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to win this beautiful christmas themed softie from Anya at Banban Designs. His name is Bingle. I thought that he would be absolutely perfect to share the christmas love, and so I decided to send him on a very important mission.

On my way to a christmas get together, I stopped by the local park and quickly attached him to a tree.

It was such a beautiful day - perfect for just a bit of hanging around and waiting to be found.

I checked about six hours later on my way home, and Bingle had disappeared, so I'm hoping that he has found a fantabulous new family to live with.

Check him out over at The Toy Society..... and all of the other worldwide christmas droppers!

Blogtoberfest Day 22: My Creative Space

Yesterday in My Creative Space (I'm not going to be home today, so I thought ahead).

Work in progress on the Mookah Challenge. I've had a slight setback already.

My original plan was to make a laptop bag, but the felted jumper was far too thick to go through the sewing machine. The next plan was to make a softie with the felted jumper as one layer, and fabric as the other layer. I managed to sew the two layers together on the machine..... and tried to turn it out for well over an hour (and using various blunt and sharp instruments and many expletives in the process) - until I packed it in and gave up!

So then I spent about another hour unpicking all of my mess.

Never fear, I have another idea! All is not lost just yet. Luckily I still have at least another week left until the end of Blogtoberfest.

Photo courtesy of Mr X

My nephew Mr X has been staying with me this week, so while he was playing games on the computer lastnight, I did a bit of clothes alteration. This gorgeous So! Indesign skirt was given to me by a friend who bought it for herself, but never wore it.

It was a bit large, so I removed some of the inner fabric panel, added some more velcro (I couldn't be bothered unpicking the existing velcro), and I used the fabric offcut to add a handy dandy side pocket. I think I might wear it to the Quilt Hanging Friday night.

Don't forget to visit Kirsty to play along and check out everyone elses lovely creative spaces...

In Print

If you could hear squeals of delight coming from way out west Friday night, don't worry, it was just me opening the current issue of Patchwork and Stitching Magazine.

Click on picture to enlarge


There's a wonderful heartwarming story about The Toy Society, featuring one of my softies - Fuzzy Bear
I was so excited, I rushed straight over to visit all of my family members to show them. Fuzzy Bear was dropped here. I hope he found a lovely new home to live in.

Bianca has created an amazing place to join with other people who just want to share the love.

Thankyou Bianca for making us all smile....

PS - There's also a feature on Miss Muggins in the current issue

A little way to help - updated

It just gets worse each time I turn on the news.

There is a small way that we can use our crafty skills to help. Sarah from With A Cherry On Top and Bianca from The Toy Society are going to try to find an organisation who will take handmade toys to distribute to children who have lost everything in the bushfires. Rach from Grandy and Baa had the same idea too.

If you think you can help, please email thetoysociety@gmail.com

Updated: Rach from Grandy and Baa is collecting handmade clothes (appliqued onsies, t-shirts and skirts etc) - head on over if you can help out.

Sparkly Green Knickers is going to donate the proceeds from her Etsy Shop to the Bushfire Appeal...

Ready to drop

My softie is ready to start her secret Toy Society Christmas mission....

Keep an eagle eye out on the Toy Society blog to find out the rest of the story.

A happy mail day....

I headed down to the post office thismorning to post off some goodies....

....and when I arrived home, the postie had been to my house.....

and look what he delivered....this sweet Paisley Jade bunny named Cherry.

Cherry is currently sitting on my kitchen windowsill, keeping an eye on the choc chip cupcakes for me. Thankyou so much Kristy. Cherry was such a wonderful suprise.

Kristy has a softie shop here where you can find lots of other gorgeous bunnies.

Cherry and I are off to have a cup of tea and a cupcake now....

A Super Secret Toy Society Mission

Last week I received this beautiful babushka softie in the mail from The Toy Society. I was given a super secret mission to make a drop somewhere in the world where it would be appreciated. Ms Babushka lived on my kitchen bench for a few days (it's ok, she was well fed and watered) while I made my super secret plans......


The day of my super secret mission finally arrived. I strapped Ms Babushka into the car seat (she's very safety conscious and wouldn't sit in the front seat).....

We drove and drove until we found a pretty place with a big sign out the front. Ms Babushka wanted to go and live at The Sofitel Mansion and Spa but I explained to her that she had a greater mission than to live a life of luxury.....

So instead, we pulled up out the front of The Open Range Zoo. It was quite busy and there were lots of people around so we had to be super sneaky....

I left little Ms Babushka hanging in a tree just near the Hippo Crossing sign and waved farewell.....

Head on over to The Toy Society to find out more....

Hello!

Hello there and welcome to my new CurlyPops craft blog!

I've been addicted to reading craft blogs for about 6 months now so I thought I may as well join in the fun.

As I am new to this, I have no idea what I am doing so please bear with me as I try to work it all out.

Of course, I must post a photo. These little fuzzy creatures are the softies that I made for Christmas pressies.