Hiccup Dolls for our Night Fury Dragons!

If you have seen the movie 'How To Train Your Dragon' then you know that one of the things that makes the movie so good is the relationship developed between viking-in-training Hiccup and Toothless, the Night Fury.

If you saw this post then you know that I have made a Toothless plush for my sons and my nephew.  Well, my mom, sister and I decided that they needed a Hiccup to go with them.

I did some research online tutorials for dolls that I could make work (that would be easy too) and decided on this tutorial.

Here are pics of my result!  I was pleased!  I hope the boys love him!

Toothless Plushie!

OMG!  I can't believe I finally finished this project!  

My nephew's favorite movie right now is How To Train A Dragon.  In fact a few weeks ago they came up and brought the movie and we watched it.  I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the movie.  My boys fell in love with it as well!

So when I found this tutorial to make a Toothless plushie I decided that this needed to be another Christmas present!  This will be my Christmas present to my nephew and I thought to go ahead and make one for each of my boys while I was at it!

This was probably one of the most challenging sewing projects I have done yet!  There were about 25 pattern pieces!!  And some of the steps were difficult to figure out but I did!  And I am glad I stuck with it!

I enlarged the pattern pieces by 200%!!  The final doll is a dimension of 36" from tip of head to tip of tail!  (I found one online for not quite this big for $250!!!)

I can't wait to see their faces on Christmas!  I especially can't wait to see my nephew's reaction when he opens his!!

Here are some pics (they don't do it justice...I am not a good photographer and could not figure out the best way to get photos to show you what these are like!  Yes there are flaws (it is my sewing so there are going to be flaws!) but I still think they are cute!

Oh - and I probably should state I made these with black felt!  Felt is very easy to work with :-) That was a plus for this project!

Here is a full body view - like I said they measure 36" from tip of head to tip of tail.  The wing span is 45"!

Here is a belly shot - sorry it is blurry!

I'm ready for something a wee bit easier! :-)

Another Doll :-)

I got another doll for Alyssa made for Christmas!!

I got this pattern from a Pioneer Crafts book I found at the library.  The pattern was for a rag doll.  I decided to use some of Alyssa's receiving blankets from when she was a baby to make the doll out of!

I thought it turned out really well.  Every time she would walk in and see me working on it she would start yelling "baby baby" and wanting to hold it...she couldn't figure out why I wouldn't let her (she doesn't grasp the whole wait until Christmas thing - HA!)  But it's good to know that she wants to hold it!  It will be exciting to watch her open it on Christmas!

Here she is next to the book I used for the pattern:

The Cat In The Hat sock puppet

Aaron is in love with the cat in the hat right now!  I thought it would be fun to try to do a sock puppet dressed like the cat in the hat!  Thankfully Aaron spent the afternoon at Granny's this afternoon and I was able to get this made for him!  I can't wait to give this to him on Christmas!!

A Homemade Doll

Yeah!  I just finished making my first doll!!!  (the first of 3 different kind I am planning on making for Alyssa for Christmas.  I found the tutorial for this doll here.

 I loved how her hair turned out!!

 Here is what she looks like without her dress on.

Like I said, I will be making a couple more dolls for Alyssa, along with some other toys for the boys!  It's going to be a fun Christmas :-)

Christmas 2010 Is Almost Here!

It's that time of year again!  Time to start getting things together to begin another Watson Handmade Christmas!!

I am coming up with some awesome ideas this year!  This year I intend to involve my children a lot more in the making of gifts for our family!!  I have some cool ideas that I can't wait to share with you!

I also have some ideas of things to make for my kids this year!  I am already looking at how to make felt Mr. Potato Heads and how to make felt checker sets (actually getting that idea from familyfun.com).  I can't wait to share all of these ideas with you!!

I hope you are getting excited as well!!!  Keep tuned in for more posts to come!  And feel free to leave me a comment letting me know you are excited as well!!  (this will help make me motivated to get the posts up too (-: )

Photograph Candleholders

(note: all pictures will be at the bottom of the posts…Family members – you have fair warning right now – do not read any further – it will ruin your surprise!)

Can you tell by now there is a theme to my gifts this year?  I had both grandmas specifically tell me they wanted pictures this year for gifts.  I decided to get creative about it…it’s a lot funner than just giving them prints and frames!!

This idea is sort of my own.  I saw in a photo book the idea of printing pictures on regular copy paper and wrapping around a votive holder to create a neat illuminating effect.  I thought to myself a way to make this permanent using modge podge.

I got a couple of glass vases/candleholders at Wal-Mart.  These were a pretty good size and were heavy glass (but still were pretty cheap) and I picked up a container of modge podge.

I came home and figured out what size picture would work best on each side.  I then went into my photo editing software and sized and cropped my pictures.  When I was setting up to print it (on normal copy paper) I decreased the intensity (you could also probably just decrease the saturation as well) so that the pictures were semi-opaque so that the flame would sort of glow through them.

I then cut them out and applied the modge podge to the back of the picture and then attached it to the outside of the candle holder (coating the entire candle holder).  I then applied a thin coat of modge podge on top.  I let it dry for about 20 minutes and then applied another coat.  I ended up putting about 6 or 7 coats on top.

I put a tealight in my candle holders just because I like how the tealights are in the little metal things and the wax won’t melt to the inside of the holder.  You could put votives in the holders as well.

Once again I was very pleased with the end product!!