I had about three competing ideas in my head for this challenge, a lot of procrastination and one extension (did you notice we pushed this a week?). My oldest daughter is a really into "family" right now - in fact, her lovey aka "Towel" has a family now: her stuffed monkey is Towel's brother, her blanket is Towel's mommy, and her sleeping bag is Towel's daddy. Don't ask me, she has a vivid imagination that I'm happy to foster and roll with. So for this Toy Challenge, I wanted to keep with the family theme.
While craft blog reading one day, I came across this fun blog called Made by Joel - Joel creates toys for his kids. I was looking around and then saw these: Fabric Nesting Dolls. A-ha, the perfect craft for the Toy Challenge!
I switched up the original instructions a bit, but the idea is the same.
I made sure to position the front & back so that I could get a peek at the felt from the front. |
Generally following the original tutorial, here are the changes I made:
- Use Canvas for the front - it's great for painting
- Use REAL felt for the back (I have an affinity for real felt & had leftovers; ok ok, I keep a decent stash on hand).
- Use pinking shears to cut the shapes (it's pretty and eliminates hemming the bottom)
- Top stitch right onto the outside of the "doll" instead of sewing and flipping (so you're sewing onto the right side, hence the pretty pinking)
- Add color to the 'people'
They are all "comfy & cozy" as my daughter would say, i.e., they fit well as a bundled / nestled pack. |
potentially my newest obsesseion FABRIC PAINT PENS! Brilliant! |
I practiced sketching before the final paint hit the canvas. I tried linen, but it was too flimsy to draw on - for me. |
Real felt is so nice & thick. |
Just below, I used random circular shaped items to draw the "arch" on each doll. That's my removable fabic / invisible ink fabric pen. I drew right onto the front so that I'd have a guide once I started sewing.
Just give these a spray of water, and the ink will quickly disappear. It's like magic. :)
After stitching together, trim off the arch and start sketching. I am NO ARTIST and cannot draw to save my life. These shapes however were super easy.
My trick: when I was at Joann's the other day, I snapped a couple pictures with my cell phone of iron on decals for family stick figures. I used those pictures as a reference to figure out how to draw these. I combined the hairstyle from one w/ the arm pose of another, etc to suit our personalities.
We've got the carpenter, the knitter (I wasn't about to try and draw a sewing machine), the sassy, hand on hip big sis with her Towel, and the curly haired sweetie little sis (with her special blanket too).
I finger pressed the canvas edges up a little so that the felt showed more - wanted that pop of color!
I think this constitutes playing and qualifies as a toy in my book! :)
I hope you like these Fabric Family Dolls, and if so, do me a favor and vote for them! :)
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