A very fun Christmas commission

One of my tasks this December was to create 3 specific types of plush for Christmas gifts. The commission was from one of my best customers, and it was a really nice creative challenge making them for her.

The first one I was asked to make was a Nutcracker, and after doing a bunch of research and drawing up lots of variations on the idea, I settled on this design. Meet Hans the Nutcracker:

Hans patrols the town, making sure that everyone is in the Christmas spirit. In his spare time he cultivates both holly and mistletoe. He's made of flannel, with fleece for his face and hands, and faux fur for his hair and mustache. His teeth and facial features are made from felt.

My next objective was creating Eve, the Christmas Fairy- this one also went through a bunch of sketches before I settled on the final design idea:

I took my inspiration from a Christmas tree- and created my own fabric for her dress from two variations on a green dot cotton fabric, cutting them out and then sewing them together to create a tree-ish design. I added candy cane striped tights, with snowflake shoes, and sparkly felt buckles, and topped it off with a sparkly white felt pointsettia flower in her hair.

Her wings are created from the same candy cane striped cotton, with bright pink flannel centers.

And lastly, and MOST challenging was this guy, Optimus Prime:

In case any of you don't know, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots. He's made of mostly fleece, with felt accent pieces. I hand sewed on his helmet antennae, exhaust pipes on his shoulders, and the tires and gas tanks on the sides of his legs. I had to somewhat simplify his design to be able to make him in my style, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way that he turned out.

These were a TON of fun to make, and I enjoyed this commission a lot. It was really great to make Optimus, since I was/am a big fan of the Transformers. My sister and I had quite a few of the original toys when we were kids- and I kick myself for getting rid of them when we "grew up."

Anyway, I hope that these were a big hit in the home where they landed for Christmas- I know that they almost weren't allowed to leave my house when my family saw how they turned out. ;D

Well, that's it for 2011- I'll be back in 2012 with new creations. I'm off to spend some time relaxing, re-charging the creative juices, catching up on my reading, and viewing all the content on my DVR that I missed while I was sewing away the past month. :)
Here's to a great year in 2012 to you all!

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you and your family have a wonderful holiday season! 

Another of my commissions this month was this guy, Keyrock, the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. Based on a character created by the late, great,  Phil Hartman on Saturday Night Live.

He's made from actual wool suiting in a black pin-stripe, with a white cotton shirt and red tie, and his face/hands are fleece. His facial elements are made from felt, as is his huge and cumbersome 80s cell phone. His hair is this crazy black faux-fur, that I knew would be perfect for caveman hair when I saw it in the fabric store.

New plush for the holidays

I didn't have as much time to make all the plush ideas I wanted to make for the holidays this year, but I managed to create a few fun pieces, like these Snowman Head Pillows,

 and these 2 sets of holiday Bears, of which only the set of the Green Bear and mini Red Bear are left in the shop.

 I added the Gingerbread Circus Clown to the shop- he was in the Plush Team's Group show at the HotPop Gallery in Milwaukee earlier this year,

and of course you can find the Mini-Yetis hanging out, enjoying the wintry weather and looking for new homes and new friends to have adventures with,

and there's always the group of Holiday Rabbits that would be happy to be sent off to explore new places this winter, as well.

I'm working madly on new things for a great cause and some items for a great customer at the moment, and when I am done, I'll be sure to post the results of all my sewing frenzy right here, so stay tuned! :D