"Everybody's A Somebody" art show

I can't say enough how much fun it was to re-create plush versions of some of my favorite characters from Roger Hargreaves books on the "Mr. Men" and "Little Misses." I have such fond memories of these books from my childhood!

After flipping through all the books, I decided to make plush of the awesome Mr. Funny, and the nose-in-the-air Little Miss Splendid. In order to make them more than just an exact re-creation of the character, I used different textured and patterned fabrics to add some flair to their already larger than life personalities.

Meet Mr. Funny:

I used a super soft and "funny" checkered, lime green minky fabric for his body, and a swirly yellow flannel for his gloves, with a fun patterned red and green cotton for his shoes.  His hat is made from bright yellow felt, with a blue cotton band. He wouldn't be complete without the flower in his hat band, which is made from felt, with a green pipe cleaner as the "stem."


Here she is in all her snootiness; Little Mis Splendid:

I stayed true to her color scheme from the books, just added in some coral patterned and solid cottons to inject some more panache and style into her wardrobe, along with a more sophisticated blue for her hat band and purse closure. I think that she would approve. :) Her body and hair are made from yellow fleeces, which make her pretty cuddly. Although I'm not sure she's the cuddling type... ;)

If you are in the LA area, and a fan of these books, you won't want to miss this show! The iam8bit gallery  on Sunset will be transformed into scenes from Roger Hargreaves world, and there are all sorts of fun activities planned. I really wish that I could go to the opening! There is going to be some amazing art on display. :D The show opens on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 and runs for a few weeks.

What happens in Mexico...

For the May/June Challenge, members of the Plush Team were asked to create plush pieces that illustrated a vacation nightmare. At first, I had NO idea what to make, and then I started thinking back to my family vacations, and volia! I had my idea.

These plush are based on a true event that happened to my family as we were playing poolside on Christmas morning, 1982 in CanCun, Mexico.

My sister (4yrs old) and I (8yrs old) watched in horror, alongside a bunch of other families next to the pool as a group of "orderlies" headed up by a truly ugly "Nurse" (on closer inspection we realized that the "she" was actually a "he" in full drag, with seriously hairy legs and stubble and chest hair) carried on a stretcher a sprawled out Santa towards the edge of the pool. 

Santa seemed to be drinking blood (THE HORROR!) out of an IV Bag on the stretcher. All the orderlies and the nurse were laughing their butts off, and were clearly drunk themselves. 

Without any warning, the orderlies heaved Santa into the pool, and then they all jumped in after him. Needless to say, my sister was HORRIFIED that they'd tried to drown Santa, and it took my parents a loooooong time to calm her down enough to where she could listen and understand that it was someone else dressed in a very tight and too-small Santa suit pretending to be Santa, and that he wasn't drinking actual blood, it was an alcoholic drink called a Bloody Mary. 

I will spare you all the visual of what the tight, white uniformed "nurse" looked like getting out of the pool, but I did make sure to add on to my Santa plush the butt-crack that we all saw as he was helped out of the pool:

You can imagine how many complaints the hotel management got from all the other parents with small children who were traumatized that morning by seeing this crazy stunt. 0_o  
We got over the shock and enjoyed the rest of our vacation; had some great times and saw some amazing things that trip, so it all balanced out in the end. :) 

If you'd like to see the other entries into the Plush Team's Vacation Nightmare Challenge, you can find them in the Plush Team's etsy shop. There are some great plush by the Raggy Rat and KittyKitty Crafts depicting their own ideas of vacation nightmares. 

FrankenSquirrel and a new Buckaroo

Well it's been a hectic few months of settling into the new studio- which is mostly organized- at least enough to get me sewing again. ;D Between unpacking/organizing and the visits of family and friends, it's been tough to get time to blog, but here I am, finally getting caught up.

First off is the plush that I created as part of a thank you for the awesome JMonster of I Only Like Monsters fame- she was the judge of the Plush Team's last Challenge, which was fairy-tale themed.
I decided to make JMonster a FrankenSquirrel, which is the first one that I've made, and appropriate for someone who loves monsters, don't you think?

Next: I am very excited to announce that I was invited to take part in Ugly Doll's art show, UglyCon, at Giant Robot Gallery in Los Angeles that opens June 15th. Tons of awesome plush-makers were invited to do their own interpretation of the Ugly Doll character, Babo.
It took me some time to figure out what I wanted to do with Babo, but after doing some thinking and sketching, I decided to do an homage to the summers in my hometown. Every July, Calgary puts on a HUGE outdoor rodeo called the Calgary Stampede and Exhibition. Everyone in the city, and a ton of people from all over the world get dressed in their best cowboy gear and come downtown to see the parade, have pancake breakfasts, and watch the rodeo events. Not to mention play games and ride rides on the midway, as well as eat all sorts of carnival-type food (i.e. mini donuts, cotton candy, candy apples etc), go to concerts, (if you're an adult- you get to drink LOTS of adult beverages and for 10 days your employers will mostly forgive you if you take off early or come in late ;D) and look at all the stuff on exhibit and for sale in the various outbuildings. As a kid, it was one of the best parts of summer. So, after that long preamble, here is my Buckaroo Babo:

                                                                        Howdy Y'all!

It was a ton of fun getting Babo's cowboy on: his jeans are made from actual jeans, his shirt is made from bandanna material, and his chaps (pronounced "shaps") are made from faux-leather with a faux-suede fringe. His belt buckle and cowboy hat are made from felt. Black cowboy hats are usually worn by those considering themselves tough, and this Babo is one of the toughest cookie rustlers in the Wild West. (Babo loves cookies.) If you are in the LA area next weekend, head on over to Giant Robot for all the UglyCon festivities- it looks like they've got some great fun planned. :)

The "Stitched" show is coming up this weekend!

I'm really excited to say that I was invited to be a part of this awesome show of amazing plush artists and soft sculptors that takes place in Beacon, NY from April 13th to May 4th. The show is curated by the awesome Lana "Plushinator" Crooks, and hosted by Clutter Magazine in their Gallery.

It was tough deciding what I wanted to make for the show, and it took me some time to get my new studio space to the point where I could actually do some sewing, as you can see from this photo:

After some frantic unpacking, I found enough of my supplies, and got to work creating this guy: Captain Archibald Jones, retired Navy officer who now spends his days sailing his sloop, the Amelia, through the waters of the Puget Sound.

Captain Jones is wearing a very soft navy wool pea coat and hat, with wool trousers. He wears a nautical striped shirt and has a nautical themed belt buckle on his faux-leather belt. The Captain has a peg-leg, which he doesn't like to talk about, but uses very well, thank you very much. He doesn't go anywhere without his pipe, which is made from cork. Since he retired from the Navy, he let his hair grow, and now he resembles the Old Man of the Sea, which is the way he likes it.

If you are interested in seeing or purchasing the pieces for the show, you can sign up for the preview list by clicking here.

Ahoy maties! I'm off to unpack and organize my studio properly, which should only take the rest of the week. ;D

More plush will be coming soon, so stay tuned.

Icarus for Baby Icarus

I was asked to re-create one of my favorite plush, Icarus, for a couple who are having a baby boy named Icarus. I loved making Icarus the first time around, when it was for the Plush Team's Mythology Challenge, and making him a second time was just as fun, if not more.  This new Icarus will be hanging on the wall of Baby Icarus' nursery, which is awesome!

Due to the quick turnaround I had to make and ship him, I didn't have time for more polished photos, but you get the idea:

Here he is without wings:

And with his wings attached:

I'll be taking a hiatus from my blog and etsy shop as Plush Goodness headquarters moves to its new and exciting location: more on that in a few weeks! :D

Claudine Clodhopper

As promised, here is the plush that I made for the awesome AC of Hibou Designs for the Plush Team's Mardi Gras themed Secret Santa swap.

Meet Claudine Clodhopper:

The Clodhoppers are a species of BigFoot that love to wear mis-matched socks. Claudine is a big fan of Mardi Gras, and gets out her mask and fleur de lis brooch every year, along with her beads and coins, and heads out to have fun with her friends.

She is made from a super soft and cuddly shaggy plush minky, which makes her great for snuggling with. The mask is removable and made out of felt, with gold trim and feathers - it's not Mardi Gras without feathers, right? ;)

You can find a few of Claudine's cousins hanging around in my etsy shop- they are eagerly waiting to go off on new adventures. :)

Plush Mardi Gras!

I received my awesome "Mardi Gras in a box" from the terrific Patti Haskins last week, which was part of the Plush Team's yearly secret santa swap this year. I was really excited to open it up, and here's what I found inside:

Besides the fun Mardi Gras bling in the box, the star of the show was this amazing handmade plush Mardi Gras Crown! So awesome! It was so fantastic that some of my new plush snuck it out of the box along with some bling, and decided to have a Mardi Gras party of their own while I was out of the house on Tuesday. It seems that Merv the Muppet Reporter was named King of this Mardi Gras celebration, and, as you can see, really enjoyed having that crown on! (I think that they opened up the bottle of Yermit wine that Santa had, and this was the result. ;D)

Thanks a million Patti for the awesome plush crown- as you can see, it's being put to good use already.

If you're wondering what I made for my secret santa, here's a teaser of the plush all wrapped up. I'll be unveiling it after my swap partner has a chance to enjoy it for a bit. :D

Woohoo! New plush...again. :D

As promised in my earlier post, I have finally taken the time to snap some photos of the awesome collection of plush that I received for Christmas this year. I was seriously excited to open up the boxes containing these guys, let me tell you!

Here's the most awesome Santa plush from the amazing Yermit, complete with Santa toque and the bottle of wine from the Yermit Winery: (I loooove his face and those great ruffled cuffs on his shirt)

The fantastic Orson the Space Crab by the talented and eco-friendly Cotton Monster: (the teeth kill me- so good!)

The adorable Flower by SukiSuki: (the patterned fabric used for the leaves is just too cute)

And, last but not least, I got this guy from the Plush You! Show this year- A Highland Bull by AndaPanda, who is from Spain. I'm a sucker for corduroy, and this guy is so full of character:

I'm working on a special Mardi Gras plush at the moment, since the Plush Team is having its annual swap, which is of course totally fun and is getting everyone in the mood to "laissez les bon temps roulez!" Check out the plush created for the swap so far (along with other fun topics) over on the Plush Team's blog. I received my swap in the mail yesterday, and I'll be posting the photos over on the blog soon. :D