Care Bears T-Shirts

My little nephew loves Care Bears (the modern ones, of course).  Though I'm definitely more partial to the original Care Bear crew, I can't deny my adorable nephew one of his favorite things! (Not to mention I love that he's too young/too awesome to care that Care Bears may be considered "too girly" for boys, depending on who you ask)

For his fourth birthday, I decided to make him a custom Funshine Bear shirt with matching hat!

This is a very easy and affordable beginner project for all you n00b crafters out there and/or Care Bear aficionados who want a great Halloween costume that doesn't involve wearing a full-body pink bear suit! I spent around $12 at Michael's for all the supplies and I completed the entire project in one night.

Funshine Bear's current look

Look how happy he is!

Things You'll Need

• A solid color T-shirt that matches the Care Bear of your choice
• 1 sheet of plain white craft felt 9"x12" 
• Colored felt as needed for the design of your choice 
• Needle and thread or sewing machine (you can match your thread colors to your felt or just use white) 
• Scissors
• Fabric glue (optional) 
• Red baseball cap (for Funshine Bear only)

What to Do

Figure out your design

Break down your Care Bear's "belly badge" into simple shapes that you can cut out of the appropriate colors of felt. 

Cut the components out of felt

Start with the white background. If you want an oval shaped belly badge, just round out the corners of the felt with your scissors until you get a shape you're happy with.  If you want a circular belly badge, I suggest using a clean plate or bowl as a stencil to ensure symmetry. 

Once your white background is complete, you can start cutting out the colored details that will comprise the main design. Make sure that your pieces will all fit on the white background you just made, with a little room on the edges.

Attach the pieces to the background

If you don't like sewing, you can try using the fabric glue to attach the pieces to the white background, but felt may not like to stick to other felt as easily as it would stick to a different, sturdier fabric.  Especially when you're dealing with very small parts (like the sun rays on Funshine), you don't want to take your chances and risk pieces falling off. 

Small pieces may be better for hand-stitching, but that depends on your sewing machine and your own abilities. If you decided to match your thread color to your felt, you don't have to worry so much about the decorativeness of your needlework.  However, if you went with the white thread, try to make sure your stitches are small, neat, and deliberate-looking.

Funshine's Hat

If you're doing the hat for Funshine Bear, cut the semicircle sun and sun rays out of yellow felt and either glue them or sew them right onto the cap. Gluing here works a little better since you're adhering the felt directly onto the hat. (If you're having trouble applying pressure for the glue to set, try putting the hat on a stuffed animal or pillow. Cover the design with some wax paper, and stretch rubber bands over it to apply constant pressure without bending the hat out of shape.)

Attach the belly badge to your shirt

Once all your felt is securely assembled, you're ready to attach it to your shirt! Simply sew along the edge of the white background felt either by hand or with a machine. Stitch style is again up to you, depending on how much your thread is going to show. 

That's it! 

- Nori <3

Plushie Voidling from League of Legends

Original Splash Art

Featured on Riot Games' Summoner Showcase #73!

This is the first major sewing project I did all by myself. I'm really proud of how it turned out, since prior to this I had never used a sewing machine before! Unfortunately, I did not save my original sketches or patterns, so the sketches below won't be perfect! This project took a lot of trial and error and 3D spatial analysis...

My raw materials

Technically, this is an "upcycling" project, meaning I took old stuff and repurposed it to make something new and cool. In this case, I used two old shirts and a pillow to be the raw materials for my plushie. As you will see, the two shirts provided all the fabric I needed except for the yellow eyes, which came from the pillow. The stuffing from the pillow was also reused to stuff the plushie. Of course you can copy my voidling using new fabric and stuffing, but using old cotton shirts gave the resulting plushie a softer, cuddlier texture than crisp, new fabric would have.

Things You'll Need: 

• Fabric in at least 2 colors, plus a little yellow for the eyes
• If you're going with the original colors, you'll want a similar amount of light purple and dark purple. You can also opt for patterned fabrics to stick closer to the splash art.
• Stuffing
• Sewing machine (optional but recommended)
• Hand sewing kit (needles, thread, scissors, etc)
• Something to cut patterns out of
• If you wanna be like the pros, you can cut your patterns out of muslin. I just used butcher paper because that's what I had on hand. Newspaper or giftwrap would work too.
• 16ga floral stem wire (or wire that's similarly strong yet mildly pliable)

What to do:

Prepare your patterns. 

Below are the basic shapes for each part. These are NOT drawn to scale. They are simply to give you an idea of the basic shapes. Consult screenshots of voidlings in game for the proper proportions. The voidling I made ended up about a foot tall.

A= Front of each foot and head (make 5)

B= Bottom-back of each foot and head (make 5)

C= Top-back of each foot and head (make 5)

D= Underbelly (make 1)

E= Main body (make 1) 

Make the feet and head

If you really look at pictures of Malzahar's voidling, its head is roughly the same size and shape as its feet, except upside-down. If you're following the original color scheme, the feet and head should be the lighter purple color.

Ready for some geometry? Make sure triangles B and C are isosceles triangles (one line of symmetry) with  bases equal in length to each other but shorter than the distance between A's left and right points. Then make sure that B's long sides are equal in length to A's long sides, and C's sides are equal in length to A's short sides. 

All these ratios are important because this ensures all the components will connect neatly without excess hanging off, while also ensuring that the feet will be puffy with a slight curve when stuffed. 

When you're ready to sew, sew B+C's bases together first, then attach BC to A, leaving a small opening in the side so you can invert it and stuff it. Be sure to get stuffing in all the corners! 

After the feet and head are stuffed but before you seal them completely, take your wire and cut it to the length of each foot (long-ways). Carefully insert the wire so it fits snugly running from top point to bottom point. If you're afraid of the wire poking through the fabric, you can tape some scrap fabric to the pointy ends first. The wire gives the plush more structure and little weight without sacrificing any softness.

Once you're done with the wire, seal any openings by hand with needle and thread. 

For the eyes, cut 3 small diamond shapes out of yellow fabric and sew them onto whichever one you decide is the head. Don't forget that the head is the upside-down version of the feet!

Make the body

This part is a bit more straightforward. The voidling's body is shaped somewhat like a simple horse's saddle. E folds over and D connects on the bottom to keep the shape. Play around with your pattern to make sure you have the sizing right. 

No wires in this part! Just sew it up, leaving a gap to invert the shell. Then stuff it and seal it! 

Make legs

I didn't draw a pattern for the legs because it is the easiest shape. The legs are just a simple sleeve. Cut 4 long rectangles and fold them in half (long-ways) then seal the long edge with a single seam. Invert and that's it!

Attach legs to feet

This part can be done a number of ways. If you're creative, you might be able to come up with a better method than the one I came up with.

When I sewed the seams on the legs, I left about a centimeter to to both edges open. That allowed me to place the leg on the back of the foot (kinda like a suction cup). After I sewed the leg in place, the connection looks a bit like a heart because of the way the fabric flared out. 

Once you have a leg attached to each of 4 feet (remember to save the 5th one for the head!) go ahead and stuff the legs. try to pack the stuffing in there pretty tight, since the legs are important for structure. 

After they're all stuffed, take your wire again, and cut pieces of wire the same length as the legs (not counting the feet). Put a bend in the wire that mimics the angle of the voidling's legs in game. 

Attach legs to body

Using the same method as before, attach the filled legs (with feet) to the body. Be sure to make a conscious decision which end will be the front and orient the legs/feet accordingly. 

Attach the head

Voidlings don't have much of a neck, so just sew them onto the body however you like. 

That's it!

Don't be discouraged if your voidling can't stand on its own... The game designers didn't design this little void demon with real-world physics in mind! 

Please feel free to post any questions! And send me pics of your own voidlings!

- Nori <3