Making Monsters!

Last month we were out and about, perusing the goods at some local toy stores, when the kids came across UglyDolls. From what the nice lady at the store told me, these are the latest rage for the kiddies and I have to admit, my kids were pretty taken with them. But, being the thrifty person that I am I could not see spending $29.99 for some polar fleece and polyfil! I promised the kids that after Halloween we could dig through my fabric stash and they could pick out some polar fleece and I would MAKE them custom monsters. I had the Monkey Man draw a very basic pattern for his monster. I just needed to know the specs, arms or wings, fangs or a tongue, how many eyes, what type of ears, etc... I also quizzed the Piggy on what she wanted. It was cool to see how different their monsters were! So, here is step by step instructions on making your own monster!

Step One: Make a pattern out of cardboard. I will be the first to tell you that neither of our monsters were symmetrical in any way. That's just not how I work! Also, make the pattern about an inch bigger all the way around to take seam allowances into account.

Step Two: Lay the pattern on two layers of fabric and cut it out.

Step Three: Use other polar fleece or felt and cut out the eyes, nose, fangs, etc... handstitch those onto the monster. I handstitched the pupils onto the eyes first then handstitched the eyes onto the monster. I used a triple folded length of yarn for the mouth and handstitched it onto the monster.

Step Four: Sew the monster inside out. Make sure you leave a decent sized spot unsewn so you can stuff it.

Step Five: Turn the monster right side out and stuff the little bugger! I used regular polyfil and I stuffed it until it was pretty taut. I used a wooden dowel to smush the polyfil into the arms and ears.

Step Six: Talk your wonderful mother-in-law into slip-stitching the hole! :-D

Step Seven: Present finished monster to a very eager child and get that warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart!

Now I wouldn't have paid $29.99 for these silly things, but I had a WONDERFUL time designing them with the kids and it probably cost me less than $5 in materials for both of them! So it was a total win/win situation and the kids ADORE them! Now go wild and make your own monster creations!