2015 Final Projects: Swaps, stuffie, etc

One post to show off all the bits and pieces I finished up in the last week of 2015.

First up, the guinea pigs I made for my friend's kids.

Ernestine and Bertram

Get the pattern HERE.  Do it, it's totally worth the few bucks (Jodie's patterns are great stuff).

Next up a pair of swaps.

First is an inspiration tree.  You had to make a tree shaped pillow stuffie and decorate it using your partners prompt word.  My partner had "peace" (as in peace and quiet) as her prompt.

I went with calm and soothing images that you would enjoy during a peaceful/quiet moment.  So the trunk is book print fabric.  One side of the top is coffee, chocolate, and "shhh".

The other side had cookies (yes, I know you shouldn't use food to soothe yourself but a cookie would probably go nicely with the coffee and treats aren't all bad).  Since there wasn't a lot of embellishment on this piece, I added "relax".

I'm worried this tree didn't hit the mark, though I like it.  I let the fabric to the work and that feels a bit like cheating but is it?  No, not it is not.  (hey, even with creative endeavors, work smart not hard!)

Last but not least was a One Tiny Thing (profile based) swap.

My partner likes minions so. . .this happened.

Yes, those are minions on a little banana headed child.  It's weird and I love it.

LOVE IT!

Little banana beads (with leaves) along the edges, too.

The beads are all courtesy of my sister.  The minions were on a bracelet (for kids, from the dollar area at Target) and the bananas/leaves were from a beaded handmade plant hanger she scored at The World's Longest Yard Sale (she went over the summer but I couldn't join. . .she got me some great stuff and I'm all about going this summer, already planning it!).  I had to give the fruit beads a good scrubbing (they had a nice layer of dust on them) but the minimal effort was totally worth it.  Now I have a little dish full of all kinds of different fruits and a mess of leaves (I tossed the generic white plastic filler beads, they were ugly and just needed to go bye-bye).

And the back:

I'm so uptight that I just LOVE when I can keep the theme going on the back fabric.  It gives me JOY I tells ya, JOY!

Along with getting these items wrapped up, I started on my charity sewing.  That's in the next post.