Sunday, February 16, 2014

A Valentine Mouse


For Valentines Day this year I made a furry little mouse for my daughter. You can find the instructions for these adorable critters by Jennifer Murphy here. I'll show you my step-by-steps:


First I made the pom-pom head and body. Simply wrap the yarn around your fingers and tie the center tightly. I used two fingers for the head and three fingers for the body. 


I slipped the wound yarn off my fingers and tied it at the center with waxed dental floss (NOT the "glide" kind.)


Then I cut through all the loops... 


and fluffed the pom-pom, trimming it to the desired length, or fluffiness I wanted.


The closer I trimmed it, the more compact the pom-pom became. When the yarns are longer, the pom looks "stringy-er." I think when I do this again, I will use smaller yarn, like that used for baby items. It may make a more compact ball. 


I found some felt scraps (this whole project is so small, it can be made using basically nothing BUT scraps!) and snipped out some mouse ears.


I hot-glued them and pinched the ends together.


Then I glued them into the head. Note: The original instructions call for using Beacon's Felt Glue but I used only hot-glue throughout.


The instructions called for black beads but I didn't have any so I dug through one of my many junk jars.


And found an old Christmas ornament with some mercury glass beads that were about the right size for little beady mouse eyes.


I painted them black.


And hot-glued them in.


Next I threaded a needle with heavy thread for the whiskers.



I pulled the double thread through, clipped it at the right length and put a dab of glue deep inside to keep it from pulling through.


Next I made the arms and legs with two lengths of chenille stems. Did anyone else call these "pipe cleaners" when you were a kid???


At first I tried brown, but settled on pink. I didn't glue the head on just yet.


I glued the center of each stem nestled into the body of the mouse.


Then I bent them in half toward the body to form kindof loops. Once the arms and legs were glued on, then I glued on the head.




Then I formed little paws.


I cut the skirt from a couple of cupcake papers.



I pinked the edges but I don't think it's  really necessary.


I glued the skirt on, with the seam in the back.


Found some ribbon, rick-rack and posies in my junk jar and added those.


Since it was going to be a Valentine gift I chose an old cake pick from my stash.


I also needed a stand. I didn't have a "small circle of wood" as per the directions, so I just used an old alphabet block that just happened to have my daughter's initial on it (and MINE on the back!) I first glued a square of felt to the top, then glued mousie's feet onto that. You can see the tiny metal jello mold in the background. I wanted to use this as the base but it was too large.

  
Here she is! With a little applique flower for a hat!


This was a SUPER FUN craft,


And I want to thank Jennifer Murphy for sharing her instructions!


I really want to try this again and make bunnies for Easter!


Love, rosie







Saturday, February 8, 2014

So close yet so far away....


The pups want to stay inside with all the snow and cold out there but today they found a good reason to go out!

Hope you are warm and cozy! 
rosie