DIY Sock Rhino

After recently revamping my sock sloth tutorial and turning it into a video, I decided another sock creature was in order. Living in South Africa, rhino conservation is a cause that has become very important to our country. 22 September saw the celebration of World Rhino Day, and the awareness posts floating around my Facebook news feed added to the inspiration to create this little cuddly friend.

This little rhino is a cute addition to any collection of sock creatures, and an adorable reminder to support rhino conservation - don't let the only rhinos left be plush toys.

If you make your own version, be sure to share it with me!

LDP x

Sheldon the Dinosaur Plush DIY

For about a year now, my friends and I have adored the Sheldon the Dinosaur comic by Amburgered. Sheldon is a tiny dinosaur who thinks that he is a turtle, and uses an acorn for a shell. Whenever I know one of my very close friends, Abi, is feeling down, I make a point of finding a recent Sheldon comic and sending it to her to cheer her up.

I decided that, because of this love Abi and I share for Sheldon, I ought to make Abi a little Sheldon of her own.

If you want to make your own, here's how to do it:

1. Download the pattern here.
2. Sew your four leg pieces to the leg holes on the inside body.
3. Sew the dart at the back of the inside body.
4. Sew the two outside body pieces to either side of the inside body piece.
5. Sew around the neck and head area and at the back, bottom area, making sure to leave a space for turning and stuffing.
6. Turn the body right-side out. Put the safety eyes in on the face and stuff. Close your stuffing hole.
7. Cut out your upper shell pattern.
8. Hand-stitch your shell (right sides together) as close to the edge as possible. Add in a small scrap of felt in the centre of the shell as the acorn stalk.
9. Stitch the upper shell to the shell base and stuff it.
10. Paint small Xs onto the shell.
11. Stitch the complete shell to the back of the body.
12. Take your own little Sheldon on adventures with you! 

I'd love to know if you also read the Sheldon comics, or see if you make a Sheldon of your own, so please leave your comments below!

Thanks for reading!

LDP x

Sock Sloth

I can't be certain why, but recently, I've been slightly besotted with sloths. I don't know when or how this started, but seriously, have you seen how cute baby sloths are?! (Spoiler alert: they're really freakin' cute).

One of the first noted occasions that this obsession showed its prominence was when I found this picture:

I don't even know where I found this, so I don't know to whom I ought to credit it.
Blame the internet.

After I'd finished making my "Thrift Sloth" jokes, I happened to be looking around the Sock Dreams website for some inspiration for the sock-craft contest that Cut Out + Keep is currently running, when I stumbled across these:

Look at them! Just look at them! They are incredible! Exclamation mark!
Also, you can find them here.

These gave me some much-needed inspiration for a contest entry. I would make a sock sloth!

(I also wrote a tutorial on how to make your own, so keep reading for that.)

Moustachioed Goat

Over my last six weeks at university, I have been watching a lot of the show Community. And by "a lot", I mean unhealthy dosage a lot. Now, for those of you who don't know the show, the second episode of the first season ends with two of the main characters rapping in Spanish. I can guarantee that if you haven't seen it, you cannot possibly conceive how incredibly awesome it is. Therefore, if you haven't seen it, you should watch it here. And if you have seen it, then I've no doubt you'll watch it anyway.

Now, because of this Community-obsessed state in which I've been wallowing, I, naturally, took it upon myself to make something Community-related. This is a bit difficult, considering that the show has actors rather than animated characters which would be easier to convert into crafts. So, I made a goat with a moustache.

Unfortunately Cameron Diaz was unavailable, so I made his moustache out of felt, just like the rest of his body.

It was pretty simple to make this cute little guy, but if you'd like to make your own, you can find a full tutorial, as usual, over on Cut Out + Keep.

In other university-related news, I essentially abandoned my photography project thanks to a to-do list constantly clawing at my sanity. I'm now at home for vac, and I'm only returning to Grahamstown next Sunday, so I'm enjoying some crafting time while I can before the work starts up again - which is going to be fairly soon, as I still have vac homework to get done.

LDP
x

Read All About It

When I was working on my galaxy-print collar, I started playing around with other collar ideas, too. I love the look of newsprint, so I desided that newspaper would be a fun idea for a collar, as well as an ideal opportunity to play with some Modge Podge.

Here's my tutorial on how to make this collar. I used faux leather and some newspaper, so the materials aren't particualrly obscure. 

I'm not at home at the moment, so I haven't been crafting, but I have been catching up on posting some tutorials, such as this one on how to make a Jake the Dog plush from Adventure Time (I'll devote a full blog post to him another time).

I also played around with a pair of Bat-symbol lace glasses, because I was bored with the plain old yellow glasses I had lying on my desk as the remnant of some hippie party or another.

I'm still thinking of what I can make as Christmas gifts (I put off gifting until I was sure that the world wouldn't be ending today), so hopefully I can still write a few more tutorials to enter into the Cut Out + Keep Secret Santa Contest.

Good luck with not ending today, world.