Week 5 - Fabric Scrap Owl

The first thing I will say about this owl is that if I can make it, you can make it. I have only very basic sewing skills - meaning, I know how to thread a needle and make it go in and out of fabric. I don't own a sewing machine, so I did this by hand. ...It will definitely come out nicer for you if you have a sewing machine.

Here's the inspiration pin. Efemera-Ink definitely made much cuter owls than I did! But I had fun with it anyway. Here's her post/tutorial: Wise?

I did a few things differently:

1. I stuffed him with coffee beans instead of stuffing. I wanted him to turn out more like a bean bag than a stuffed animal. Plus, I didn't have any stuffing. Let's not forget to mention that because of this, he smells amazing! 
2. I didn't have any felt, so I used some cloth and buttons for his eyes.
3. I sewed him by hand.
4. I didn't use cardboard in his butt circle. He already sat pretty well on his own because of the coffee beans.

Here's how my owl went:

I didn't have a compass to be able to follow the suggestions on angles, but as long as the pieces have the same length sides, it doesn't matter too much. I used the edge of a small trash can to draw the curve. My pieces were 7 inches long on the straight sides (which resulted in my owl being roughly 3.5 inches tall).

See that massive fold in the fabric? Fixed with Downy Wrinkle Releaser! I hate ironing. Thank you, Downy for keeping me from having a wrinkled owl.

 

I wasn't completely clear at this step whether she sewed up the owl butt before attaching the butt circle. I didn't have much of a choice - the beans kept spilling out and needed to be held in. I got it nice and snug, then attached the butt circle.

As I said before, I didn't include the cardboard in the butt circle - this is just fabric. 

*sigh* My beak didn't turn out quite as nicely. It was hard to get it pointy while hand-sewing it. That's okay though - you can still tell it's a beak.

My finished owl! The only thing I still want to do is protect his eyes from fraying. I'm out of clear nail polish, but once I get some I'll put it around the edges of the fabric to keep it from fraying. If you haven't done this before, it's a great way to keep fabric, ribbons, etc. looking nice.

I left my owl sitting on my nightstand when I was done... maybe the smell of him will wake me up in the morning! 

Week 4-ish Cardboard Box Airplane - Phase I

I'm almost back on track!

My Nephew is currently obsessed with airplanes, so when I saw this, I knew I had to make him one. Growing up, my Mom made the most creative Halloween costumes for us out of whatever she could find around the house. She's so creative; we were always so excited about our costumes. I can't wait until Marshall is old enough for me to make him a costume. In the mean time, making my Nephew this airplane satisfied the itch.

Here's my version of the Cardboard Box Airplane:

My airplane is smaller than the inspiration plane because my nephew is younger and I wanted him to be able to climb in and out of it without a problem. My planned next step was to paper mache it to make it stronger, but my husband talked me out of it. It would be an awful lot of work for something I'm not certain my Nephew is even going to play with. I am still planning to paint it though :)

I took a few pictures along the way so that you could see my process. I didn't measure anything, I just eye-balled it. If you have questions, let me know - but I improvised a lot and just had fun with it.

Materials:

2 Cardboard boxes

Kitchen scissors

Sharpie

Packing Tape

Assembled Airplane:

Stay tuned for the finished product! This little guy is going to be disappointed when his cousin gets to keep the airplane instead of him!

Update:

Here's the finished, painted airplane!

I used white spray paint to paint the whole thing white. I almost had it covered in 2 coats, but I had to go back a third time in a few spots. It probably would have worked in two if it weren't so windy the day I painted it. I used my Silhouette Cameo to create and cut some vinyls to decorate the plane. The birthday boy was pretty pleased with his new plane :)