Valentine's Day!: Puffy Hearts ♥

Here is a very simple Valentine's Day craft!

You could make one as a Valentine for someone, or you could even make a bunch of them and hang them from a tree or around your house!

The best thing about them is that you can personalize the colors and styles.

You will need: 

• Two colors of felt, 25-33 cents each
• Embroidery floss
• Needle
• Stuffing

All together this craft should cost you less than $1!

 First thing's first! Make a stencil.  Now, we all know how to make a perfectly symmetrical heart! Think back to elementary school and fold a paper in half.  Cut a half heart out of it and unfold it. Voila! A perfectly symmetrical heart.

 Cut two larger hearts out of red if you're copying mine, or whichever other colors if you are making it different from mine!

 Sew a smaller heart onto the front of one of the larger hearts.

 Here is a zoomed up picture of the top heart.  It isn't perfect, but that's why I like it!

 Sew the two larger hearts together! I pinned them together to try and keep them straight for this step.

 Before you have finished sewing it all together, stuff it to optimal stuffiness.

Sew it shut and you're done! This is a really easy craft to do if you know how to sew or are learning how to sew.  It is very inexpensive to make and I think they are very cute!

Eid Day Plushies!

Eid Mubarak!!! If you celebrate!

I am not Muslim, but my best friend and her family are.  We celebrate Eid together every year, as well as have Iftars together during Ramadan.

If you are interested in seeing the DIY for this project, here is my link:

http://milkpolka.blogspot.com/2013/07/hayah-hijabi-dolls.html

 Here are the three plushies I made for my two favorite hijabis for Eid! I changed the style a bit for my second plush to see if I liked it better.  I like them both! I took two pictures so that it was easier to see the colors on these three! 

Hopefully you guys like them and that they like them too! Eid surprise that I'm giving them on Friday! :]

I don't have a tutorial for the crescent moon and star but if you would like to see one, please comment and let me know!

Please be aware that I am not trying to force any views on anyone, I'm just sharing gifts I have made for a very close friend of mine.

Recent Projects

Here are some crafts I've been up to for the past couple months.  If you would like a tutorial on how to make them please let me know! :]

It's baby shower and birthday season around here and I've been crafting like crazy to keep up. 

This is the present I've made for Colton Shane, my newest nephew.  The details haven't been filled in yet, but he hasn't been born yet! 

This is what it looked like before the puff paint.  They went for a Caterpillar Tractor theme.  I think a regular caterpillar would've been easier to find however! I went with this gender neutral safari theme because it's one of my favorites and I had no luck with finding tractors.

This is the one I made for their first child, Olivia.  It was surprisingly difficult to write on the lady bug paper, and surprising difficult to read too.  

The same, without writing.  I took canvas and painted them, then mod-podged a stenciled piece of paper on top.  I made the bow too, but the other parts were all from Michael's.  Her theme has always been lady bugs, but she recently fell in love with elephants so I borrowed the elephant from the safari sheet and used E-6000 to stick it on.

I am in a sorority and recently it was my big sis's birthday.  Our sorority isn't crazy into drinking or anything but it was her 21st birthday and so I had to make it special, don't hold it against me. :p 

Basket with a nice martini glass, puff-painted sippie cup, 8 mini bottles of alcohol, aspirin, gatorade, and mouth wash.  It'll probably take her forever to finish it!  This was a relatively inexpensive basket to make, and I think it turned out very cute!

Then I had the idea to make my dog [the one from the Hijabi post] a plushy too since he loved that one so much. 

Buuuut my boyfriend stole it, as he LOVES dinosaurs, so I need to make him something still!

This one wasn't a present for anyone.  I have always loved Pokémon and Dragonair has always been one of my favorites!! I decided to make one on a tote bag out of those decorative garden beads! I love the result.  I've since done some flowers in the same style.

For Father's Day I made my dad a wooden box with a painting of Jasper on it, as well as some inside jokes.

 The entire top.  No, I don't really call my dad by his first name, but him and my cousin call each other "Dumb Ol'" and "Smart Ol'" and that seemed like a good enough idea to me!

 This is a close up on the Jasper painting part of the top.  I was worried about painting him because he's so black and hard to show dimension in.  I ended up putting silver [my favorite paint] in it to look shiny as well as give dimension.

 This would be a hard inside joke to explain, but yes I painted porkchops [I'm a vegetarian...lol]  around the exterior of the box. 

Pusheen Inspired Kitty Plushies

For my next batch of plushies I was inspired by the cutest cartoon cat, Pusheen, seen below.  

First thing I did was make a pattern and trace it onto felt.  I always clean it up a bit while I'm cutting it out as well.  I made a few in pink as a birthday present for one of my close friends.  

After I cut them out I put stripes on their back in a different color.  I pinned them so that it would be easy to sew them on.  Be careful to not sew straight through the cat but instead just one side at a time.

This is what it looked like while I was sewing them on.  I removed the pins as I went along.

Then I started a blanket stitch around the outside in a white embroidery floss. I bought pink embroidery floss to match but of course couldn't find it when I needed it!  

Then I had these three faceless pusheens.  I haven't stuffed them or given them faces yet. 

I did try out some potential faces though.  This was my first attempt. Kind of frightening.

I didn't want to do anything permanent so I cut out two pieces of felt for eyes and puff painted a mouth on an extra piece of felt.  

And another. 

These are the faces I ended up doing.  Decided to do them entirely just puff paint.  

I used a verrrry small paint brush to get the little details done and to round out the eyes a bit.

I'm going to add some magenta stripes to the lighter Pusheen once I get my magenta puff paint, but this is what it looks like stuffed.

 This kitty is fully done the way it is!

Thanks for reading! :]

Update: I have added the magenta stripes to the lighter Pusheen.  It now lives with my friend Loren! She said she wanted a pink plush cat for her birthday, but I couldn't help but make a matching one for myself!

Hayah Hijabi Plushies

My Hijabi Doll Tutorial

An Eid Present Idea

Disclaimer: This is the first plushie I've ever made and am not claiming to be an expert.  

I've been crafting like crazy since school let out for the summer.  My newest craft obsession is making plushies with felt.  I've seen numerous plush tutorials but never thought that I would actually be able to do it, considering I don't have much experience with hand sewing.  My first attempted project was inspired by hijabi dolls I saw on Pinterest.  It's Ramadan right now and my best friend and I always get something for each other for Eid [she's Muslim, I'm not], so I had to find something I could make her.

If you would like to purchase a doll made by  me I have them listed in my etsy store
https://www.etsy.com/listing/159672167/cute-hand-sewn-felt-hijabi-dolls

Below is the link to the original.

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/islamic-kawaii-softies 

To the left is my version :] I may make a prayer rug later.

First, the supplies used.  

I used 

• 33¢ felt in purple for the hijab
• 33¢ felt in light blue for the body
• 33¢ felt in a skin color for the face and hands
• regular white embroidery floss
• an embroidery needle
• puff paint for the face
• paper for a pattern
• fabric glue
• scissors
• a sharpie
• stuffing

All in all it's a really inexpensive project to do.

 The first thing I did was make a pattern. I didn't really know what I wanted initially so I practiced it for a while until I liked what I had. I folded the paper in half so that it would be equal on both sides and made sure the hijab piece fit the body well. Then I traced it onto the felt and cut two pieces out.  

After I had cut out two body pieces and two hijab pieces, I pinned them together and made sure they were exactly what I wanted.  I started stitching the hijab to the body.  I ended up cutting the blue body piece down at the top so that the hijab would connect over it in one solid piece, but you can do what you like.  I did this for both body pieces and hijab pieces.  I only sewed the bottom of the hijab since the rest of it will be sewn together once I put the whole doll together.

This is what the back[inside] ended up looking like after I had stitched it on and added a drop of glue on the knots.  I then started to cut out different face shapes to see what I liked.  The original had a very oval shape for the face but I found that I did not like it on my doll and instead went for a circle.  I traced a pill bottle directly onto my felt and cut it out. 

I think the round face makes the doll look a little bit more innocent and a lot happier, which is what I was going for.  Cut out only one face shape and stitch it onto the hijab and body piece you want to be the front of your doll.  Use any stitch you think is cute of course but this is how I chose to do mine.  You could probably even glue it if you wanted but It might not hold once stuffed and will make the felt kinda hard and stiff.  Ignore my puppy in the background. 

The back should then look something like this, or at least mine did.   Again, I glued the knots down with a little fabric glue, as I have been known to tie knots poorly.  I should also say that I used a little fabric glue on the face to help it stay but it's really not necessary to.  

This was the problem I mentioned earlier.  If I had sewn it just how I had cut it out it would have had a blue line in the middle where I did not want it.  So I trimmed that back a little bit.  Word of advice, this would've been easier before I had sewn it together, but, hindsight. 

This is what they looked like after I had cut a little bit off of each piece to line them up a little better.  This also shows just how much I cut off.  

Then I started sewing both pieces together.  I didn't know what I was going to do for hands at this point.  If I had I would have saved myself a lot of time and effort by putting them on before I had sewn the two pieces together.  Again, hindsight.

This is what the doll looked like stitched together before stuffing.  Keep in mind I did not sew the bottom so that I could put the stuffing in.  Also, I added those hands.  Thank goodness my hands are pretty small so I was able to sew them.  

Then I stuffed the doll.  My advice would be to use a pencil or something to really get the doll filled, especially the top of it.  I also wish that I had filled mine a little more.  

Cutting the bottom piece was probably the hardest part for me.  I have no prior experience and had no idea how to do this.  I ended up just tracing the bottom and sewing that on.  It worked pretty well.  This was about the shape but I ended up cutting it down a lot before putting it on.  

This is my puppy Jasper with the Hayah doll. He loooooves little stuffed animals and truly thought this was for him.  I'm currently making him a stegosaurus.

The finished product again.  I practiced the face before I actually did it just to make sure it was what I wanted.  Feel free to alter the design in any way, this is just what I did.   Let me know if you like the design or if you have any suggestions/requests and show me if you do your own version!

♥