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