Kid Designed Stuffies

I’m almost done the handmade holiday blog posting, in case you find this agonizing. Just think, my New Year’s Resolution was to start on next year’s Christmas crafts immediately so there is just going to be that much more talk about crafing. Yay! Right?!

These little guys were made for my neice and nephew. This was really my god-daughter, Julia’s idea. I think what happened was that she wanted an Ugly Doll and Michelle took one look at the price of an Ugly Doll and told Julia that Auntie Amber could make one. I assumed all this because the next time I saw Julia she asked me to make her an ugly doll like it was a given I could. At the time I had absolutely no idea what the hell an ugly doll was so I told her she’d have to draw me a picture. This led to a conversation about the book Stitched In Time, where there is a featured project of a horse that the author’s niece drew and the author subsequently turned it into a (gorgeous!) stuffie.
And so… I’ve been meaning to make one of Julia’s drawings into a stuffie for, oh, about a year. Except that her brother, Ben, also drew me several pictures to be made into stuffies and for the life of me I can’t find those drawings. Ben has asked me consistently where his ‘ugly doll’ is, or if I’ve knit him a stuffie yet. Like maybe an owl? Or a bat? He asks every time I see him, so I couldn’t in good conscience make a stuffie for Julia and then not have one for him, too. I’m getting a new pile of drawings from Ben, so until that happens I’m holding off making the doll for Julia.


That is why my niece and nephew had their drawings turned into stuffies and once again Michelle and family are strangely suffering for no real apparent reason. Talk about a whole bundle of fail going on here. That said, now that I’ve made these I learned a lot and so the next ugly dolls I make are going to be SO much better than these. So, you know, there’s that.
I should have just bought a damn ugly doll and saved you from having to read those last three paragraphs.


Steve and I both think these dolls are seriously creepy and couldn’t possibly imagine a kid enjoying them one bit. My kids, though? LOVE THEM. I had to tear that ugly “rabbit” out of Claire’s hands while she screamed “MY BUNNY” after I had her pose for these photos.

Callum randomly draws me pictures and then demands that I make them into a stuffie for him. I’ve started something. You’ll also notice that I rather stupidly put the face on the wrong side of both dolls. At least I’m consistent.