Craftsmen have long been fond of easy-to-use felt. This is a soft and warm fabric that is sold in small sheets of all kinds of colors and shades. Felt is perfectly cut with scissors, sewn and even glued with a glue gun, so it is used for a variety of crafts. These are trinkets and brooches, bows and elegant hairpins, pendants on the bag and wallet, soft toys and wreaths on the head. Decorate crafts in the form of a picture or applique on clothes, glue on a head hoop and sew on the belt.
In the article, we will consider how to make small toys from felt for a child. Such small crafts can be put in your pocket, take with you to kindergarten or school, play on the go. If you sew a heart, you can give it to your loved one on Valentine's Day. And snowflakes, Christmas trees, snowmen will decorate the branches of the New Year tree.
You can dream up on any topic. So, small felt toys can depict animals and fish, insects and ancient dinosaurs, voluminous or flat flowers, hearts or cars for boys. The child will like the character of his favorite cartoon. Before making crafts, you need to draw a drawing of the pattern on a sheet of cardboard, with each detail of the toy cut out separately, and then sewn to the selected place.
How to draw a pattern
It is easy to cut small toys from felt according to the drawing drawn in advance. Let's look at how to do it on the sample character below of the popular Snuppy cartoon. The largest detail of the craft is a head with a trunk and legs. This is an integral image, on which the legs are separated by a seam. Buttons are sewn on instead of the eyes, so you do not need to draw them separately. The front legs are cut in duplicate. An oval made of black felt is sewn on top of the ear. A bow can be made single, as on the sample in the article, or you can cut out loops, and it will turn out to be voluminous. It remains to draw 2 details for the tail and nose.
Before cutting fabric, be sure to cut cardboard parts and try them on the central image of the toy. If everything is drawn correctly and fits perfectly on the selected places, then you can cut out elements for sewing small toys from felt along the contours with your own hands. Think in advance what color the details of the pattern will be, so as not to buy excess fabric. Sheets of felt are not cheap, so consider everything before sewing. On a black and red sheet, cut out small details with the edge to save material. It will be needed for other crafts.
Sewing small felt toys is an exciting experience, so you are unlikely to stop after the first craft. I want to do more and more. Therefore, approach the cutting of the fabric wisely and do not throw away the remaining shreds, because you can always even sew a nose, mouth, or make a bow out of a small piece of fabric.
Finger Theater
From small toys from felt, you can make a home finger theater, that is, small figures of fairy tale characters that are worn on fingers. This is a useful and fascinating game, during which a child’s connected speech develops, his emotionality and ability to expressively pronounce the text of the role. With existing heroes, you can fantasize and invent independently tales and funny life situations. A child can play with friends and parents. The game does not take up much space, a small box is enough to put all the characters in a closet.
How to sew small toys from felt, we will consider further in the article. Such figures, as in the photo in the article, can be made even by those masters who are completely unable to draw. Circle the contours of the finger to find out the width and length of the craft. Draw to such a cover the ears, eyes, nose and mouth of the character. You can add hands, tail and, for example, glasses, in general, decorate in accordance with the image. Next, cut according to the pattern and sew along the contours with simple threads selected in the color of the fabric. The back side is not formed in any way, the tail is sewn on the side so that it can be seen from the front.
Monsters
If you do not know what small toys you can sew from felt, then we can advise you to make some funny monsters from the cartoon. These are simple crafts, which are mainly made up of a single piece. On a sheet of cardboard, draw the contours of the body of a monster, fold the fabric in half and cut two identical elements at once. The remaining small parts are made of another fabric and sewn on top of the front part. It is easiest to stitch the mouth with stitches. For this purpose, use floss thread. They are thick and bright, so they will be clearly visible on a sheet of felt.
If you make a triangular edging, like a dinosaur, then on its pattern, do not forget to leave a strip of fabric from below to connect with the body. When the entire front side is sewn, a piece of padding polyester is cut out 0.5 cm less on all sides and is superimposed on the back side of the front part. Then put the back and on the sides all sew with stitches over the edge. Select the threads to match the fabric so that they do not stand out against the general background. Eyes can be glued with hot glue, felt is perfectly held with it, and the toy can even be washed.
Circus elephant
The next toy is also quite simple for making by novice craftsmen. The body of an elephant is made one pattern at a time. If you do not know how to draw animals, it does not matter, you can always use sketches from the Internet, printing them on a printer. It is not difficult to draw ears and hearts, and the bow is assembled from two parts - the central element with thin stripes on the sides and in the center and thickenings for the loops, as well as a jumper (a small strip that turns the bow folded in half).
Ears are a double piece, they are sewn on both the front and back. The bow is attached to the upper seam at the very end of the work, as are the hearts that the circus artist juggles. The function of the eyes is performed by buttons in black, preferably round with loops on the back. Paint the cheeks with a blush using a brush. The volume of the toy gives the filler inside. It can be a synthetic winterizer or foam rubber, artificial cotton wool or small balls for the development of fine motor skills of hands and fingers. For this filling, dried peas, buckwheat or rice, lentils or beans are used.
Dinosaur
Let's consider one more light craft of felt of dark green color. The contours of the dinosaur are transferred to a double folded fabric and cut out with scissors. The upper part of the body is surrounded by chalk on a light green felt so that the stitching of the parts is accurate.
Draw semicircular growths above the line and a strip for stitching (approximately 0.5 cm) underneath. This part is immediately sewn to one of the patterns of the body from above. Prepare the filler and put all the parts together. Mouth and eyes can be made of felt of other colors by applique, however, on our sample, the master simply stitched these details with stitches.
Three layer star
Great are obtained small Christmas toys from felt. They can be made voluminous by filling the interior with synthetic winterizer or cotton or insert cardboard. If the craft is sewn only from fabric, then it will be soft and over time ugly curve by an arc, losing its shape. However, for a three-layer star, as in our sample, this does not need to be done. Many layers make the toy dense. For this craft, you need three sheets of felt - green, red and orange.
All the elements are cut out according to the pattern, it is advisable to repeat the pattern on the back side, because a toy on a branch can spin on a thread, and the plain back side will look ugly. Therefore, the red star and the orange circle are cut in duplicate. A small pattern is embroidered with thread. Floss or shiny silk will do. Do not forget to sew a loop of thin satin ribbon or rope into the upper corner of the star so that you can hang the toy on a Christmas tree branch.
Funny gnome
For such a toy, one pattern is made up of different colors of felt. The bottom pink detail connects to dark green. The seam is hidden under a strip of white with triangular corners on top.
It can be glued after embroidering with thread flowers. Separately, ears are cut out and attached to the sides of the head. Decorate the craft with buttons, eyes, a pompom stuffed with cotton, and an ornament for a gnome's hat made of buttons and leaflets of two colors.
Felt snowflake
To create such a snowflake you will need a glue gun, transparent beads, a pebble to cover the joints in the center and thread with a needle for embroidery on each leaflet. According to the template, 6 identical parts are drawn, resembling oak leaves.
Then the same ornament on all elements is embroidered with white threads. Attach beads to the upper ends of all lines. Place a drop of glue on the sticks in the center and fold it in half. It remains to connect all the stems together at one point with hot-melt adhesive and attach a large pebble.
Complicated craft
How to make a small toy from felt, you already understood. Let's now look at how to sew a unicorn figurine from several parts. First, the horse's body and ears are cut out from a white sheet of felt.
Then, bangs, mane, tail and hooves are cut from the pink fabric along the contours. The horn and piping are gold. Decorate the crafts with flowers using the kanzashi technique and a strip of beads using a glue gun.
Try to make such toys at home! Good luck