Tutorial: TOTORO Pram Mobile

Hi everyone! I am back! And guess what?!?! My PC is up and running again. I don't have internet however so I have to alternate between the PC and the laptop. But that's ok for now. Atleast I can get on with my work and edit photos and what not. It was the slot for the network card on the mother board that killed my sweet PC. Expensive to sort out, but luckily I can sort it out temporarily with a USB WiFi to get internet on it again. Since I've been gone for a whole week I have quite a few blog posts lined up for you. I will do one every other day to catch up. So let's start with this Totoro Pram Mobile = O v O =

 As you all know by now my baby is due any day. I am panicking to get everything ready. There is many things I just wanted to buy as I am quite tired at the moment and can't be bothered making EVERYTHING myself. But when I look up things I want and scan the baby stores around here I just get upset and angry over how expensive everything is. It makes me so frustrated as I think things are way over priced, especially if we see to the fact that they'll only be used for a few months and then you have to move on to the next thing. So I have taken things in my own hands as I'm not going to be a slave to the baby and toddler market. Simple as that! My first project has been this Totoro Mobile anyway. It is super simple and super cheap to make on your own, just follow these simple steps and you'll be fine.
Start out with drawing the simple shape of Totoro. If you're not sure on drawing then just get a picture that you like with a good silhouette on Google Image Search and trace it or just cut it out as your stencil. There is plenty of cute pictures out there.

 Make sure you got a stencil for the general shape and then another stencil for the eyes and for the belly. Yet again very simple shapes. I choose to go with Totoros original colours as I think the pram we got looks just like a Totoro pram and his colours would look perfect with it. But you can obviously use whatever colours you want. I used a pretty hard and sturdy felt, as I do with all my work. I don't like the thick soft stuff and think that the harder type just look like much better quality. For the grey shape you need a back and a front. So two exactly the same pieces. Whilst you only need one pair of eyes and one tummy.

 Place everything where you want it and use simple running stitches to sew the tummy into place.

 Since the eyes are so small I wont use any stitching here. Just make a little hole where you want the eyes in the grey felt piece and then poke little holes in the white felt eyes and use safety eyes to fasten them. I cut off a little bit of the safety eyes so they wouldn't poke out the back to much. If this is for a baby or toddler, make sure that you leave enough for the eye to still be secure. We don't want any accidents.

Then I move on to the stitching around the outside. You can use a machine for this if you don't like hand stitching. I find it quite relaxing and I also love the look of blanket stitches, so that was my obvious choice. Make sure you use allot of pins to keep the felt in place. It is easy for it to slide and look a bit funny if you don't.

 Blanket stitches are very easy to learn and once you get the hang of it you don't even have to think. Here's a little tutorial on how to do blanket stitches if you haven't done them before: Blanket Stitches: How to

 Before you finish off leave a little hole and leave the thread and needle in and put a small bit of stuffing into his belly. I didn't want him to look all flat as Totoros belly is what makes him so cuddly and cute. You can of course skip this step if you, unlike me, would like him flat. Once you've got the roundness of the belly you want, stitch him up and voila you got a Totoro. My camera battery died here and since it was pretty late in the evening I decided to finish off the main bits of painting so that everything would be dry in the morning. I also made two Dust Bunnies which are super simple. You just need four circular pieces of black felt and four small white circular pieces of felt for the eyes. Go about the eyes the same way you did on Totoro and then sew the two black circular pieces together with about 1 cm left on the outside so that you can give it little "sun rays". For the rays I just cut little scores all around the Dust Bunny and then cut some out completely. Very simple!
I also painted Totoros nose, whiskers and mouth with Dylon Fabric Paint, and also the grey marks on his chest.

 The morning after I continued with making little decorations for the mobile. I found it a bit plain to only have Totoro and two dust bunnies. So I cut out some leaves in different sizes and once again used Dylon Fabric Paint to do the fibers of the leaves.

 A little picture of the Dust Bunny I did the night before.

 I started out with placing the leaves out on the twine (that I later changed to brown elastics as I don't want any twine bits to come off and land in the pram). I started out with sewing the leaves on individually, but didn't like the look of it.

 So I went ahead and made little flowers instead. I didn't mean to use the buttons at first but found them in my little scrap box with loads of forgotten things. I had enough to make as many flowers as I wanted. You can use any types of shapes here. I decided on a four leaf clover looking shape and you need three pieces per flower. One back piece, one off coloured middle, and one for the front. The reason why I used so many is to give the leaves somewhere to sit without it looking funny. So the leaves can be glued of sewn in between the back piece and the middle piece. Then you keep them all together by sewing on the button and that's that.

 Aren't they super pretty?!

 And when you got all the pieces finished just pull a chord or whatever you fancy between them all. I would recomend elastics as they are very easy to work with and can fit any pram really. Make sure that things don't hang to far down as well. We don't want our baby to pull the whole thing apart. Just look and observe :)

 I am well happy with it and it goes so well with the colours of the pram. Now go and make your own. It is loads of fun and something you can always be proud of and say you made yourself. Absolutely priceless!

Here are some details :D :D :D

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and that it can be handy. If you've got any questions just let me know and I'll be happy to help!

Turtoial: How to Make a Fleece Bunny Beanie

Last night I started preparing for my big day of sculpting. I thought since I was making a hat for Munny that I could run you through how to make one. Funny thing about this hat is that you can apply it to anyone, no matter how small or big. Your baby or even yourself. So here's how to make a fleece bunny beanie:

This is what you will need, plus some sort of fabric paint which I forgot to include in the picture:
2 Different Colours of fleece (or more if you feel like it)
Cotton Thread
Bobby Pins

Stuffing Tool (or anything pointy that will do the job)
Hand Sewing Needle
Tape Measure
Marking Pen
Fabric Paint

To begin with, take the measurements around your models head and split that in half. Munny's head was 20cm around. Also measure the height of the head from the forehead to the crown. Munny's head was 4.5cm high. I also add an extra 1cm to the height. Make a pattern on a separate paper so that you can use it over and over again. This is how I do it...

Fold the pattern in half and cut along the drawn line to make both sides equal...

Use the same technique to make the pattern for the ears. The ears can be any size you want. I wanted mine to be quite big and made them 14cm long and 7 cm wide. Yet again add and extra 1cm around...

You will also need a band for the head piece. This needs to be as wide as the head bit and as high as you want it. Mine is 3cm high... Once you got all the patterns sorted you can start drawing them on to the fleece you want to use and then get cutting...

Fold the head piece in half and cut a little nodge at the top to round the hat off a bit. Sew along the nodge...

Attach the band to the bottom bit of the head piece and sew along the edge. Then fold the band in half and try to sew along the same seam...

Then move on to the ears. Make sure when you work with fleece to use allot of pins, as fleece tend to twist a bit when you sew it on the machine. Sew along the edge and use a pointy tool to turn them the right side out...

Since the ears were going to be quite small I needed something to weigh them down. When you work with larger hats the fabric will do the job itself. But in this case I had to make little sand bags so that the ears would hang nicely. It is very simple. Just take a bit of any fabric you've got handy. Make sure that it is dense enough so no sand falls out. Draw a ring on the fabric and fold it in half. Sew along the line and use the pinking shears (zig-zag scissors as I like to call them) to cut around the stitches. Leave a little hole at the end, big enough to get a funnel end into it.

Use a teaspoon to fill the funnel with sand and slowly let it sink in to the little bag. Once filled, close the hole carefully. You don't want to get sand into your sewing machine. Then place the bag in the ear as you turn the ear inside out and try to place it nicely at the bottom of the ear...

I used this chinchilla sand which I get from work. I always keep it handy as you never know when you'll need it for your models. It is really handy!

Ones you got all the pieces sewn and ready it is time to finish things of. Pin the ears to one of the head piece halves. Ones these are positioned right, pin the two head pieces together and sew along the edge.

Tada! Finished! Super Cute! And super simple!

I also wanted cross eyes on my little beanie. Start out with a marking pen so you know exactly where to paint. You don't want to mess up the hat at this point... ;) I use DYLON fabric paint for more or less anything fabricy that needs painting on. And a clay shaper in this case, rather than a paint brush. You just have more control with the clay shaper I think.

Once painted, let the paint dry for a few hours and when dry, fixate the colour with an iron. The paint has got the directions on the back. It also softens the paint so that it feels like part of the fabric... And that's it! Your Bunny Beanie is finished! It only took me about and hour to get this done, so not long at all!

I also prepared the eyes I plan to use, the night before. It is important that the acrylics are dry before you put them on to your sculpture and they can take some time to dry properly as I use so many layers. This is tricky as hell and I really don't like painting eyes. I have OCD when it comes to painting things round. They just have to be perfect, and that is more or less impossible. This time I only messed up one though, so not to bad. I would like to get some air-brush tools for the future as this would help majorly during this process...

I am making a hat for Trikky as well but that will be a later tutorial. For now I am ready to start sculpting and ready for a new day of creativity!!!