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.

7 Responses to “Kid Designed Stuffies”

1. LisaB says:

   January 6, 2010 at 7:59 am

   These are awesome! I think you really captured the spirit of both creatures. The kids are going to think they’re so cool!
2. cindy says:

   January 6, 2010 at 8:57 am

   ha ha ha, I had the same idea (but didn’t follow through). I have it on my to do list to make Ugly Dolls. I figure it would be easy. I thought it would be great to give as handmade gifts but it’s still on my to do list (being there for over 6 months now, every time I log into computer, it’s there taunting me). I ended up making something else but that was a disaster also. The material was too thick and I ended up sewing/ripping/sewing/ripping/sewing each item and lots of cursing. In the end, most gifts were late and I had to drop some kids from the original list… maybe I’ll just buy them something from the store.
3. marnie says:

   January 8, 2010 at 1:53 pm

   Very cool! I’m loving/envying your crafting!
4. Laura says:

   January 10, 2010 at 1:32 pm

   You’re right, the dolls themselves are a little eerie. But DUDE! The fact that you can take a drawing and turn it into a stuffie makes you incredibly talented in my book. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to do that. Any child counting on me for something like that would end up with their drawing pinned to a pillow. Maybe with googly eyes glued on. Seriously, you are amazing and those stuffies turned out JUST like the pictures!
5. Candi says:

   January 11, 2010 at 10:28 am

   OMG! You rock, woman! I loooooooove ugly dolls! Jack has a couple. Of course, he has a complete aversion to ANYTHING stuffed that isn’t Yo Gabba Gabba, and he already has all those, so why bother? But I LOVVVVVVVVVVVVE it that you did this! So awesome. And they look just like the drawings, too.
   I may have to email you and find out what to do. FFS, I need to learn how to sew. I imagine it’s kind of like cutting out the pattern from fabric, sewing 3/4 of it together, stuffing it with batting, and closing it up. However. I haven’t touched a sewing machine since 7th grade and I wasn’t that great at it then. So I don’t know. Bah. I can’t even sew a button back on. I’m pathetic.
   MUST.CONQUER.SEWING!
   PS – your kids? You’d better lock ‘em up. I want them. I can and will travel to Canada and kidnap them. Just so you know.
6. Amber says:

   January 13, 2010 at 8:24 pm

   To say I sew would be an enormous exaggeration. I can sew a straight line… and that’s about it! These were easy to put together, exactly like you said. The hardest part were the faces, when I make the stuffies for my god-daughter and her brother I think I’ll try putting the faces on first, then sewing it. I didn’t do that initially because I thought I wouldn’t be able to maintain the 1/4″ seam allowance and then mess up where the face ended up…
7. Candi says:

   January 15, 2010 at 3:11 am

   I would loooooovvvve it if you gave me a quick tutorial on how to do that sometime! I think that’d be an awesome thing to do.
   .-= Candi´s last blog ..Rub a dub dub =-.