Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Felt plush tutorial: Kawaii Mushroom

I recently joined up for the "Whimsical Woodland Plushie #1" swap on swap-bot.com, a platform for crafty people such as myself to get together and swap their lovely creations and stuff related to their interests, and the theme for the swap wass "mushroom".

So, I went out and bought some different colours of felt (it only costs 75c for one A4-sized sheet here!) and got cracking.

Here's what I did:


Step 1: I already did a whole bunch of things before I decided to make a tutorial on this. But what I basically did up to this step was get some paper, pen and scissors draw (and cut out) a mushroom in the exact same size and way I wanted the mushroom plush to be, put the template on top of the white felt and cut out the shape, cut out the red mushroom top separately and craft glued it on, then I cut out and glued the facial features and mushroom spots from the felt. 


Step 2: I then faced the outside sides of the mushroom inwards and did a simple stitch around the edges - though I left a little bit unstitched so I could turn the mushie inside-out and stuff it.


Step 3: Turn the plush inside-out (or, to be honest, right-way-out!). Don't freak out if the stitchings break or get a bit loose when you do this... You can always fix that up later.


Nearly there!!


Step 4: Stuff the little guy! If you don't have any proper stuffing and choose to use cotton balls, that's okay, but it would be a bit gross if the plush got a bit wet (the cotton balls would go soggy!) and it wouldn't be as soft as it would be if you were to use proper stuffing.


Step 5: Use a matching coloured thread to stitch up the opening that you left for the stuffing.


Voila!
And your little Mushie is finished.