New Monster In Town

There's a new monster in town, in my apartment currently wreaking havoc, and that's Burton!

He's one of my brand new collections, a collection I call Cotton 'n Button monsters. This is a series of monsters that I have created which are aimed at my target customers, adults. I'm sure they'll be a hit with kids, but they're not safe for anyone younger than 5 years of age, of course.

This particular stripey guy is named Burton because he's a little Tim Burton-esque, with a touch of Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. He's the goth child of all three of these movie styles, with a similarity to his furry monster relatives. Burton is a troublemaker, so beware when adopting him! He's been known to cause havoc! I've caught him knocking over a mug (thankfully empty), rooting through purses, and throwing pieces of paper. He simply wants to show you how awesome he is!

Here is Burton trying to get into my glass of water!

The glass was full, so thankfully he just got a little wet is all.

I've also made siblings for Burton. They're still in the 'need to be stuffed' phase. The reason being is, seeing as I'm a brand new entrepreneur with little to no start up resources, I haven't yet been to my stuffing supplier here in Montreal. I have made several phone calls to the companies in question, it's just a matter of going up there to buy the stuff. Soon, very soon. I have monsters I want to send to the STUFFED magazine at the end of the month, and other guys I'll be making for the upcoming Valentine day fair in February.

Here's some photos :)

Burton's almost twin on the left, a wacky patterned guy in the middle, and on the right he's made out of fabric that says "How To Stop Smoking" on it. Totally hilarious, and not for kids he is. ;)

Middle guy is made out of some crazy pink pockets I found on this gaudy shirt. He's bright pink on the back. The one on the right has a better photo just below.

This pretty girly monster is made out of some fancy patterned denim, and has a furry belly with a navel piercing. She's fancy!

I'm hoping that they'll be really popular, because I really enjoy making these guys. ;)

Grandpa Monster!

Good weekend my blogger followers! How is everyone enjoying their weekend so far? It's been snowing here in Montreal for 2 days straight, and out of the 4 people who live next to me and share the stairs going to our doors, no one has helped to shovel snow. I've done it 5 times in 48 hours. I keep telling myself I only do it for myself. :) Besides, I've already fell down the stairs once in July), injuring my left foot (which by the by is still healing), and I want to make sure my trek down the stairs is safe.

Yesterday I decided to try out a new pattern. Half fur, half wooly fabric. I really like it, but I don't know if I'll be able to make many more. I prefer the solid colour in the front with the fur, but most of what I have is crazy patterns, and it just wouldn't work in the front.

I think this guy is totally cuddly! He's about 12 inches tall and 12 inches wide. Really large, and cuddly worthy. He'll be listed on Etsy soon. :)

He's the only one of his kind. Don't hesitate to snatch him up when you see him on etsy.

http://www.curiouslittlebird.etsy.com

Have a great weekend everyone!

Purple Monster Eater!!

One of my (soon to be regular) customers on Etsy ordered a monster for me during my Christmas rush Etsy 'vacation' last week. She had bought one of the few last Wookies I was ever going to make (in the fur colour - don't worry, I'll make more!) and had it in the stocking ready for Christmas.

This is Wooky with customized hot pink horns!

Her little sister saw this monster and loved it so much she wanted one for herself. So my customer asked me if I could make one for her, but a customized one? I agreed (who can say no to pleasing someone?), and this is what I made!

I have to say that taking this fur colour, adding the pattern with the arms, and yellow curly horns really makes this an awesome monster! I hope her little sister loves it!

If you were to ask for a custom monster, what features would you want it, and what colours would it be?

Holiday Cat Hats

I'm really feeling the holidays are here (now that my business classes are stopped for a few weeks), and I needed to share this feeling with my kitties. So what did I do today? I made them hats!! Yeah I did! Ok so they're not fancy hats, and they only took me 5 minutes each, but gosh darn it they look cute on my babies.

This is Squeak (also known as Mr. Spook, Squeaker, Little Squeak and Boob). He's not impressed I got his hat back on his head for this shot. He's sporting pink fleece with pink fur.

This is Littleone (also known as Mr. One, Little Guy, and Boob as well). He really hated his hat, but thankfully stopped moving long enough for my camera to catch this really nice profile shot. He's sporting pink fleece with purple fur.

So that's it! That's my cat hats! My mom's coming to town on Saturday for Christmas eve, and before she shows up I'll put the hats back on the cats. By that point they'll be fancy collars since they don't seem to stay around the ears. Oh well.

Has anyone ever dressed up their cat (or even your dog)? I'd love to know what outfits you dress your furry little friends in! :)

Catty Holidays!

When I hear bells jingle, and harks harking I think of the holidays. And when I hear of the holidays I think about cats. Don't you?

I was perusing the internet (well Facebook anyway), and stumbled upon this fantastic book that features crafting with kitties. Ok not using kitties, but the fur they shed.  Since this post is all about cats, I thought I'd include some similar items made from kitty fur. ;)

For the quirky crafter on your list, it really doesn't get much stranger than this. But, I can tell you from experience, once you get over the initial aversion to working with cat hair, the projects in the book are fun to make and totally adorable!

http://www.quirkbooks.com/book/crafting-cat-hair

What about kitty hats?? Everyone with a cat MUST buy this! :) I would, except I think it'd be a complete waste of money since I know my two kitties hate anything on their head.

This hat was made by Scooter Knits, and is available, and for sale on Etsy for $18.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/83987929/jovie-the-elf-cat-hat

Maybe you're in the market for a handmade cat hair necklace??

This was made by Flora Davis on Etsy. This necklace is selling for $130. I think it's fairly reasonable considering I have two cats myself, and I find felting balls out of cat hair a very long, and time consuming project. This necklace can't be made overnight (unless you've been saving bags and bags of cat hair - and if you're doing that you might be a little crazy cat lady). :-) 

Here's a link to do it yourself if you want to try. It's fun to do when you brush your kitties. Instead of throwing the hair in the trash, just start rolling it in your hands till you get a ball. Add some warm water and a bit of dish soap, keep rolling... you can check out detailed instructions in the link. http://www.instructables.com/id/Felted-Pet-Hair-Beads/

Well there you have it! Happy catty holidays everyone and happy crafting!

Monster Pillows And A New Fall Banner!

It's Tuesday evening, November 15th, and I'm sorry I haven't blogged often lately.

First things first, don't you love my brand new banner? I saw on Veer they had this free fall branch illustrator file, and I just knew I had to use it to spice up my blog and my Etsy shop! Best thing is the file even came with the clouds, and I think it is just the prettiest, and gives my header the zing it needed. It was good the old way, but the new way rocks! I wonder what I can find for when it snows?

Ok I know I was bragging a bit about my banner, but I really do LOVE IT!! It's so pretty!

So, I've been uber busy making plush for every single craft fair I'm doing this fall. Let's say that 4 is a lot, and then I got into a 5th unexpectedly, so yeah, lots to do. ;) I haven't even had much time to set up my photo area to take pictures of my new plush in the past few weeks, but this week I don't feel in a great rush since the craft fair I last attended wasn't a great one. Two sales. That's it. The majority of the folks coming through were between 50-80, not my ideal target market, and the church basement was set up in two half circles and a larger outer circle. Suffice it to say, the majority of those that did make it didn't go in the middle where I was stationed. Oh well.

So I'm finally working on some monster pillows! I've been wanting to do this for a few weeks now, but of course I had some more pressing, and important plush to make. Now that I have some time to take it a little easier, this is what I'm doing tonight.

So the first one is white fur, and he has that look of surprise! His size is about 9"x15".

I know the picture is dark, but that's the white fabric that's going on the back side. One side for fun, one side when the boss comes to visit. :)

This purple guy is angry!! And he's purple! I think the best thing about him is that not only is he showing his teeth, but his eyes are yellow. They just pop off the purple, and of course they would because yellow and purple are complimentary colours. :-) I knew that... being an illustrator and all! Haha. The final size should be about 15"x15". Not a standard pillow, but that's all good.

The pretty stripey purple fabric on the left is what's going on the other side. I think this will be a great pillow for a woman with the love of purple!

 I wonder if I should add black felt horizontally to make top and bottom teeth?

Scroll down to see the finished products. :)

He'll bite your ear off if you rest your head too long. :)

I really love this purple stripey fabric. So gorgeous. Too bad I only have a small amount. Maybe enough to make one more.

This one turned out to be large and sooooo comfortable.

He's got an interesting face! I have no clue what to call him though...

Back of the pillow.. White on white cotton fabric (in case you want to hide the monster side when someone comes over)

Yup, I am peeking at the camera to make sure it's pointing at me. :)

Exposure & A Little Success

Good morning and a happy Tuesday to everyone!

So my plush adventure in the Espace Galerie art show all about monsters didn't turn out to be a huge success. When I went to the gallery last night to "work" in exchange for 100% of my sales, I got there, and noticed that in the 6 days I left my plush in there, only 1 was sold. On the bright side, the couple that bought little Bloo (shown below) paid $40 and didn't want their change.

I did know that the curator's husband really wanted Amarillo (below), and he struck me a deal. $25 plus a catalog full of all the art from the show. I didn't say no, because he really loved this little guy. :)

Michael, the guy who bought Amarillo, did some pretty funny stuff with Amarillo. ;)

Amarillo looks quite content all bundled up in his scarf blanket. :) I'm glad he's going to a great home!

Have a great Tuesday!

Working My Butt Off!

Happy Friday everyone! Oh wait, no, today is Thursday. Hahaha I'm all confused. That's what happens when you work from home, and every day can be a potential work day.

Here's a little update on my biggest monster making week yet. I started cutting up 34 fake fur body forms, and I've been trying to work in a way to make it more efficient. I started my 'assembly line' method on the monsters that have the long skinny arms and legs this week. I have 19 in total (after this morning's final count).
 

This is what I've accomplished in the past 2 days! I'd say it's pretty awesome. 2 sets of bodies, and 8 legs & 4 horns to match.

My process, once the bodies were all cut up, is to cut and sew all matching legs and arms, once that's done, I chose a nice contrasting face and then finally, horns in a different colour as well. This entire process took me about 8 hours (give or take an hour). I know, that seems like an incredibly long time. It probably is, but I took tiny breaks to see why my cats were being so annoying, to stretch out my back (gets sore after multiple hours hunched over a sewing machine), and washroom breaks (can't forget those!). Keep in mind that I had nearly 20 guys to work on. In my business plan, I've said that I could do 20 monsters a week (that's 5 a day), and this is pretty close to that. So really, so far I started these monsters on Sunday night, and worked on them for a few hours on Tuesday, then Wednesday and today we're Thursday. I spent last night from 7:45 pm until 11:30 pm turning all the arms and legs right side out, and started stuffing them. I decided it was high time to be comfortable, and I put on my favorite spy show, Alias, to watch while I work. If I can get these done by Sunday, then I'd say yay for me!! :)

Here I am cutting out horns for my monsters

More furs!

These are my next project. These guys have arms and legs built into their bodies, they just need faces and horns.

This is me!! I thought I'd show you who I am, and you can see my living room in the background.

This orange fabric is so gorgeous! It's going with a deep purple body, and kelly green horns. It'll look awesome when finished.

That's it for me. Time to make breakfast, put on a good moving and get to embroidering faces and stuffing limbs. But once this is all done, I'll be so happy. I'll have a whole bunch of monsters for the upcoming fair, and for the store, Tah-Dah!, and on to the next project.

Cheers!

It's been a crazy few weeks...

So much has happened since September has started. For one, I didn't get rejected for my business idea when I presented it to the selection committee on the 1st (yay), but that I was asked to do some research into the use of plastic safety eyes with Health Canada, as well as lowering my production costs so I can make a higher profit margin (and ultimately get approved after my 2nd presentation in October).

I suppose all plush makers know that plastic safety eyes (see image below) are unsafe for babies up to the ages of 3 years.

According to Health Canada, http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2011-17/page-5.html:

31. An eye or a nose — other than those made entirely of felt or another soft textile material — that measures 32 mm (1 1/4 inches) or less in its greatest dimension and that is attached to a doll, plush toy or soft toy must meet at least one of the following requirements:

(a) it must not be capable of being gripped by a three-pronged claw hook as illustrated in Schedule 4; or

(b) it must not be capable of becoming detached when it is tested in accordance with Schedule 4.

Also...

Eyes and noses on dolls, plush toys and soft toys that are 32 millimetres (1.25 inches) or smaller in their greatest dimension must be solidly attached in order to reduce choking, ingestion and inhalation hazards. This type of component is tested by freely suspending a 9 kilogram (20 pound) weight from it for a period of 5 minutes. This requirement does not apply to eyes or noses made entirely of felt or other soft textile fibre material.

 

It's just insane, because in my presentation, I specifically said that my target market was women ages 25-45 with a salary of $30K, and men in the same age group with a salary of $45K. Somehow, the selection committee members got it in their head that I was going to be selling these to small children and made comments about the eyes I used. To add insult to this, it's illegal to state on my Etsy shop that these toys are not intended for children under the age of 3 due to choking hazards, and this is what the Health Canada inspector wrote to me in an email:

"Please note that your products would probably be considered as toys that are likely to be used by children of less than three years.

On the webpage: http://www.curiouslittlebird.etsy.com, in the section titled "curiouslittlebird's Shop Announcement." the following warning was found:

"Please note that most of my plush have small parts and are not recommended for pets or young children due to choking hazards"

This warning must be removed from your product labelling and/or advertisement because it is in contradiction with applicable requirements.  The CCPSA, through its Toys Regulations, prohibits  the manufacturing, importation, sale and advertisement of toys that are or are likely to be used by children of less than three years of age and contain a detachable small part.  You will find this requirement in section 7 of the Toys Regulations."

I think everyone who is reading this blog and making plush should inform themselves about the Toy Regulations of their country. I got a rude awakening with this information. The problem I'm facing is how can I market my plush to adults and NOT to young children?? Make my dolls more plush art?? (any comments on this subject would be greatly appreciated).

For now I'm trying to work on being a little factory here. :) I have to mass produce a ton of the same dolls to 1) stock up my Etsy shop and start making sales 2) stock up Tah-Dah! in Little Italy (they only have 1 plush of mine right now). For some reason this week seems to be the week of appointments, and plush my friend Alecia is coming into town from Edmonton, so no work will get done while she's here.

I'm sorry I haven't blogged sooner. :) I've had a lot on my mind, and not a lot of exciting things to show you. Oh, well, I DO have some finished plush I can photograph!

All designs are copyright © Curious Little Bird.

copyright © Curious Little Bird

copyright © Curious Little Bird

copyright © Curious Little Bird

copyright © Curious Little Bird

copyright © Curious Little Bird

copyright © Curious Little Bird

copyright © Curious Little Bird

copyright © Curious Little Bird

I found it quite humorous that despite using the same pattern for these little foxes, depending on the kind of material used, the outcome is quite different. For example, the first 3 are made with plaid cotton/poly mixture, and therefore kept to the pattern, the blue striped one was made out of fleece (and the stretch of the fleece is going horizontal) leading to make a very cute fox which everyone seems to prefer, and the last one is also made out of fleece, but I didn't realize the stretch was going horizontal on this one hence the reason why it looks so tall and skinny! Hahaha They turned out unique just like people. I still find them cute. Do you?? :)

Happy Tuesday!

It's the day after labor day, and I'm wearing a white t-shirt!! I don't care about the whole "don't wear white after labor day rule" !!! :) Does anyone know what this signifies?? In Canada and the US it signifies the end of summer, and supposedly white doesn't retain heat as well as darker colours. Go figure.

I went to my cousin's wedding on the weekend in St-Georges, Québec, about 1 hour south of Québec city. I live in Montreal where all the little stars are grouped on the bottom right.

The wedding was alright, if a bit dull. Unfortunately it was an entire church service with a 5 minute bit that had to do with the couple getting married. Not really a wedding in my eyes. I noticed a girl showed up in a backless lacy black dress halfway up her thighs, wearing huge gold earrings and a gold chained 'belt' with velvety black anklet boots. Not much class there. Even her hair made her look like a hooker!

I have a few new little monsters I'm working on!! Here's a little sneak peek of them all cut up, and ready to be put together. I am making them out of faux fur blankets (pink) and a coat (olive green) that I found at Value Village (a used clothing shop). They have the same face as my first white furry yeti, Maurice, but a smaller, different body. I think they'll look fantastic!! :) I have a light purple fur like the pink one, a deep purple with a shorter pile, and some fantastic brown fur that's sooooo soft!! Stay tuned!!

These guys are going to need names?? Any suggestions?

I love to get comments, so if you have any name suggestions for these two guys, let me know!