Toy Society Drop: Constance Bunny

In 2010, I won a Tollipop giveaway: an original painting of a bunny. At that time, I also sketched a little picture of a toy I wanted to make based on the painting.

In 2011, I cut out the pieces for the toy, hoping to make a softie for the Mirabel foundation. I missed that deadline, but in 2012 I finally got around to sewing the toy in time for an Easter drop for the Toy Society (drop #1817).


Constance was made from a smattering of linen and cotton fabrics I had picked up from freecycle. If (when!) I make another Constance bunny, I will try and make the face rounder (perhaps attach it separately instead of having the head/body as one pattern piece), the dress wider at the bottom, and I will probably not stuff the ears. I still think it ended up being pretty cute, wonky arms and all.


I bundled Constance up in a plastic sleeve to protect her during her overnight jaunt in the park. Luckily I had a stash of labels and info sheets from the last time I did a drop.


I snuck out last night and hung it from some play equipment. I hope someone visited the park and Constance found a good home on Easter Sunday!

Softies for Mirabel 2010

I got this this guy to Pip at Meet me at Mike's just in the squeak of time for the 2010 Softies for Mirabel drive.

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It was the second time I'd joined in the fun, Eugene (the udderly lovely cow) having taken part in 2009.


George was made from the albert monkey pattern in the softies book, contributed by Fiona from Hop Skip Jump.

The trousers were very fiddly, but very cute.

It was a great project for using up odds and ends of fabric.

Sadly, I missed the deadline for the 2011 drive. I have the pieces already cut out for the 'Constance bunny' sketch, which might now end up as a Toy Society drop.

The envelope project

I'm a late comer to the Envelope project over at Meet me at Mike´s. I was motivated to join in the fun after seeing the envelopes that Anna Bartlett and Ingela Parrhenius sent in. The idea is that the decorated envelopes will be displayed in Pip's shop, and then one participant will be drawn at random and will receive the contents of all the envelopes. You can see the full set of photos over at flickr. If you want to join in, make sure your envelope arrives before the 2nd of August!

Here's a sneak peak of the contents of my envelope. On the left is a sweet gocco print of a bowerbird from Stellar Baby. On the right are two bookmarks - one is from a Colombian book shop (it says "reading is the key") and the other is from New Caledonia.

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Related posts:

• Send some sparks of fun through the postal system!

Send some sparks of fun through the postal system!

Next time you send a letter, pause and consider the envelope.

If you haven't made the envelope yourself out of recycled pages, consider jazzing it up with a few scribbles or cut-outs... it makes receiving mail that much more fun! No doubt for the people delivering the mail as well...

These two envelopes were made for a penpal swap I hosted on swap-bot. The first was made with scrapbooking paper, and the second one is a drawn patchwork of vintage fabric.

I was inspired to start doing it more often after receiving a lovely map envelope from Communikate and many a hand-decorated envelope from bobberdilly (along with mail art & other drawings). If you have a moment, check out his blog - it is chocabloc full of amazing drawings.

In fact, this envelope was not just based on, it is pretty much a reproduction of one of the lovely pictures he sent me.

And this is an envelope I sent him... You can't tell from this scan, but the front of the envelope had just the face & the sea snail. And when you flip it over, you see that the face is attached to the body of a fish!

It's been fun, and I'm glad he's encouraged me to draw again (and not just copy other drawings & make collages). In turn, I encourage you all to decorate that next letter, or slip in a quick drawing you've done! Go forth and sending some sparks of fun through the postal system!

(Psst...If you're stuck on who to send to, or want to send out a drawing anonymously, don't forget about sendsomething.net)

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Related posts:

• Tutorial: envelopes from recycled paper
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Toy Society Drop: Zing the polite cat

Meet Zing, the polite cat. He comes from One Red Robin's pattern of the same name in the book Meet me at Mike's.

He is made from recycled materials including an old pair of purple jeans and a remnant of fabric my sister brought back from Nepal. I made him half-size, and the pattern was easy to follow.

I made him especially for a Toy Society drop (#945) - check out the site for more plushies!

I bundled him up and left him with a letter in an envelope explaining what the Toy Society is about, and a tag that said "Take me home - I'm yours".


I left him near a foot bridge in Telopea Park (Canberra, Australia) a few days ago (20 January 2010).

Somebody picked him up that same afternoon and sent a lovely email to the Toy Society straight away. It really made my day to see that email, and the accompanying photo.

I'm so glad I managed to get another toy out there, as I've been so distracted by Morsbags recently!

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Related post: Toy Society Drop: Greggles

Eugene wants a hug!

I finished Eugene last night, so he'll be off to join the everyone else's toys for the Softies for Mirabel drive soon :)

He turned out pretty well, though I had trouble with a few things. I struggled with the face stitching and ended up using small black felt circles for the eyes. I was incapable of sewing the horns on straight, and it took me ages to do the last step where you tuck in the bottom and sew on the legs... but it was worth it!

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Related post: Udderly lovely cow for Mirabel

Udderly lovely cow for Mirabel

I'm sure many of you have heard of Pip's annual Softies for Mirabel drive. If you haven't, head over and read about it. It's a worthwhile cause and a good excuse to make a softie!

I completed my fourth-last piece of assessment for the semester today (optimistically worded!), a study of the morals and ethics in a short story by Isabel Allende. Since the essay's in Spanish, I read over it again and again, knowing that no matter how hard I try, there are always mistakes... very frustrating! At least when you're sewing, you can see the mistakes and unpick them... anyway, to cheer myself up I chose a softie to make, settling on Fliss Dodd's pattern: The Udderly lovely cow from Pip's Meet me at Mike's book.

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It's been high on my "to do" list for some time, but I could never decide which fabric to use.

I took the plunge and chose soome fabric and cut out all the pattern pieces. The floral patterned fabric is from my parents' old sheets and the red clay-coloured fabric is from an op-shop. The horns are made out of gorgeous hand-dyed wool felt from winterwood toys, whereas the face & heart are straight acrylic felt.


Stay tuned for the finished product!

If you're thinking of sending in a toy, try and have it in by the 1st of December. They'll be on display for 10 days before being divvied up amongst the kids. Happy crafting!

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Related post: Eugene wants a hug!

Shopping bag keep-safe

One of many crafty books I bought recently was Meet me at Mike's by Pip Lincolne who also has her own blog by the same name.

I chose to try the Shopping bag keep-safe project first, as I needed somewhere to keep those pesky plastic bags. It requires "one smallish vintage tablecloth or two vintage tea-towels". I didn't have any such things lying around, but picked up a kitsch tea-towel in pristine condition from the Y's buys op-shop in Kingston for a very reasonable 40c.

As you can see, it is a vibrant yellow tea-towel with a 1979 calendar and lots of flowers and koalas. It measured 74cmx45cm (29"x18"), meaning I was actually able to fit all the pattern pieces on the one towel, although the front is sideways. I actually like it that way, so you can see the date and the two koalas.


I made one small alteration: I added a button to the strap, as I knew I'd be attaching it to railings and handles with no opening to slide it on. It worked out OK...I even worked out how to use the buttonhole and the button foot on my sewing machine!

I also like the fact that the end of the strap says "WTF"... Wednesday Thursday Friday of course ;)

It fits all our rogue plastic bags (we don't have too many, having nice cloth shopping bags) and I used a cheap little fastener because that's all I had on hand. A strip of velcro might have worked better.


All in all, it was a fun project... I especially liked the fact that the book came with full-sized pattern pieces (no wrestling with the photocopying machine) though I managed to lose two of the four pieces in the process :(