Just before Easter, I was going a little ‘batty’ with all the soft bunnies and chicks that were to be had in every store. My daughter had also developed an interest in bats, of all things. Not the most common thing for a little girl to like. I guess they can be a little cute. Anyway, we got the famous book “Stellaluna” out of the library, about the baby fruit bat who loses his Mum, and this prompted my girl to write a story/activity book.
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| Okay, so she spelt “tomb” incorrectly |
She created a story called “Brittany and the Bats” (Brittany being a little girl, not a chipmunk). The above is the second book but the first book, which I can’t find, was a story/activity book with a short story, colouring in page, word search, find the differences and bat jokes like “what does a bat learn at school?” The alpha-bat of course! The above is the second in the series and called “The Lost Tomb of Doom”. I think there’s been a lot of “Alvin & The Chipmunks” and “Indiana Jones” DVDs being watched lately for her to come up with these names.
Anyway, I don’t know why but I’ve always loved making soft toys. I made some dinosaur toys out of drawings my daughter did when she was about 3 or 4 and I just like seeing things go from 2 dimensional to 3. My daughter loved it too.
I had a flashback to my teens when I made stuffed, plush horses. I don’t know who for or why but I made heaps. All different colours with colour coordinated hooves and manes made from wool. Could’ve been the start of the My Little Pony craze. Not sure. I was a little too old for My Little Ponies and have no recollection of them at all.
These guys are really easy to make and you can make them as big or as small as you like. You’ll need to cut two pieces of the body and 4 wings from felt or a stiffer fabric. You can use googly eyes or sew on buttons for the eyes and small pieces of white felt for the ‘fangs’. Sew these on before sewing together.
My daughter wanted one called “Stella” and one called “Luna” so I had to make two and just used old scraps of fabric from my stash. Is it weird that I don’t like cutting up perfect pieces of fabric to make little things like this? You’ll also need two pipe cleaners per bat.
For the wings, sew together leaving an opening on the longer side. Turn inside out. Insert the pipe cleaner into the top, cut off the excess and sew along the top. This will encase the pipe cleaner and allow the wings to be bent.
With right sides together and wings on the inside of the bat, sew together, leaving an opening at the head to turn right side around. Stuff with stuffing and hand sew the opening together to finish. (Sorry I don’t have any pictures of this.)
I wonder what will be next? A centipede? An octupus? Probably some newly discovered bacteria knowing my daughter. I was really pleased that she helped me do the hand sewing on this project and stuffed both the bats. She’s learning more and more about sewing and loving it. Check out this narrative of “Stellaluna” from Youtube. Its a really lovely story.
Linking up with:
These are super cute and sooooo adorable 🙂
Very creative of you
They are so cute! You done a great job with them – I would have never worked out that cool trick of using the pipe cleaners!
LOVE these Anne !
Those are adorable! My kids loved Stellaluna when they were little!
Love these Anne! It's great to see you crafting! You're one talented lady!
How cute! Thanks for linking up
Adorable!!!
Awww, these are so incredibly cute! What a great Mommy you are to make them for your daughter. 🙂
We'd love for you to share this with our link party, Much Ado About Monday, if you have a chance. 🙂
http://www.huckleberrylove.com/2013/04/much-ado-about-monday-no-4.html
~Emily
http://www.huckleberrylove.com
These are adorable!! What a great idea!
So cute – what a lucky little girl to have such a clever mum x
What a wonderful post. I love the little books that my girls wrote when they were young. So full of imagination and funny little drawings. I was just looking at some of them the other day when I was packing up the house. I could not bear to throw them out. Maybe one day I will make some little toys to go with them.
So cute and adorable, Anne! {we will just look past the "tumb" ..lol – I still have to correct my kids on spelling and they are done with school!!} Thank you for sharing at our ALL MY BLOGGY FRIENDS 🙂
These are SO cute! What a great idea to turn your kids art in to plush toys! I'll definitely keep that in mind when we get pictures and not scribbles 🙂
Thank you so much for stopping by and linking up on Much Ado About Monday with Huckleberry Love!!
Karla
http://www.huckleberrylove.com
So cute! We love Stellaluna!
this is SOOO cute! I love how they turned out! I'd love to feature this on my Cute Crafts for the Weekend post… but I didn't see a link back… did I miss it? Let me know and I can add it later :o) Thanks for linking to nap-timecreations.com
Clever little girl and clever mum!!!! I love creative kids!!
Visiting from Whimsy Wednesday. My Family-Focused Monday hop is live now and I would love to see one of your awesome posts linked up @ http://www.mondaykidcorner.blogspot.com.
Have a wonderful week.
These are the best soft toys you have shared thanks.