I’ve been told a few times over the years to “get a life”. I suppose they meant something mean, but who cares. I decided to get one anyways! And in doing so, I decided to create my very own DIY 1up Mushroom Plush. If you’re looking to get a life yourself, feel free to download the pattern follow the video instructions and make your very own!
I made mine in green and white, but there’s no reason why you couldn’t create an army of these cute little guys in pretty much any colors you can think of (or find the fabric for). I’d recommend staying away from green and purple though, those poisonous little buggers are a bad time.
If you’ve seen the latest season of South Park (and if you haven’t, I recommend you do), you know exactly what member berries are. They’re these little bunches of grape looking guys that are nostalgia flavoured. Member Chewbacca? Oh yeah. Member the Millennium Falcon? I member. Since these guys are so adorable, and therefore extremely deadly (at least to civilization), I’ve decided to give them their very own physical form. I’ve created a DIY Member Berries plush tutorial that turned out just as I hoped it would.
The only caveat I’ll give is that while making one of these little fella’s isn’t too bad. Making a dozen of them certainly ups the amount of time it takes to do this project. So don’t expect to put this together in an hour or two. Each berry is made from three pieces of fabric which when you’re making a dozen of them means you’re going to be cutting and sewing thirty six pieces of purple, sewing on twenty four buttons, and a dozen mouths. Fairly simple to do, but I was at this for awhile.
Ok, so this isn’t a ‘new’ craft that I’ve made, but I’ve decided to play a touch of catch up for some of the crafting videos I’ve made since I last posted here. I hope that’s ok with y’all. I made this video almost 2 years ago (man how time flies) and I can see a HUGE improvement in the quality of my videos. But you’ve got to start somewhere I’ve been told, and I see what they mean. The video is for my DIY Minecraft Creeper plush, and I think I went about it in the longest way possible.
First you need about a billion pieces, and then sew them all together. Ok, so maybe not a billion, but you definitely need way more little bitty pieces than is realistically necessary. I’ve often meant to go back and do a simpler version of this. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll go slap that on the TODO list right now.
When rolis1108 suggested I make a Pacman and Pacman Ghost, my brain immediately went to work to figure out how it could be done. They’re really not much different than the Bob-omb I had designed. If anything, it would be simpler, since there was less pieces.
So Retro
I’m a sucker for pretty much anything video game related that’s “retro”. Not that I love old games for the sake of them being old, but I do love games that remind me of simpler times. They’ve got a distinct touch of nostalgia that really appeals to my inner child. This type of craft really lets that nostalgia really run rampant in my system.
Another Project
I let the pacman idea sit in the back of my brain while I worked on another (equally nostalgic feeling) project. However, the other project started taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. Lots and lots of work coupled with an extra dose of Canadian winter has kept it running for well over a month, with the end much farther in sight. So I decided to put that on pause, and let some of the other ideas that have been piling up on my todo list get some traction.
The first of which is (obviously) the Pacman plushies. They’re both pretty straight forward as far as sewing projects go. Really they’re both a couple of stuffed balls with some eyes. Of course, just because the idea’s simple, doesn’t always mean that I’ll get it right the first time. The first pacman I made looked like it had had a stroke, and the first ghost I made ended up looking more like a bullet than a ghost. But I found, and I think you’ll also find that the modifications I’ve made to both will get you a super cute set of your own plushies.
The Pattern
I wanted to make sure that I had a complete set of ghosts to go with the pacman too. That meant building a Blinky, Pinky, Inky and a Clyde. What I hadn’t counted on was them taking about 3 hours each, start to finish. So the ghosts you see represent about 12 hours worth of cutting and sewing together. But personally I think they’re totally worth the effort. They look super cute, even pinky, who ended up with one backwards eye, giving it some pretty derpy looking crossed eyes.
Raw Footage
If you’d like to see the raw footage sped up to run in 5 minutes, check out these videos
Shortly after I made my plush chewbacca domo, I devised a plan to make another plush (Thanks to a suggestion from Ashe2342. However coming up with a pattern took a fair amount of time, hence the Boba Fett Pumpkin.
Once I had my initial pattern complete, I went about my usual process. Cut out all the pieces, stitch them all together and film the entire process for your enjoyment once it’s all complete. Continue reading »
Of all the things I’ve made on my channel to date, this one has turned out the closest to what I had in my imagination when I first thought of the idea.
I’ve made many different projects for my channel, and most have turned out pretty ok; Some better than others. But the Chewbacca Domo had just the right amount of Chewbacca and the right amount of Domo for me. I even impressed myself, which is harder to do than you might think.
Enough about how good it is, and onto how I made it. I had a look around a real fabric store, and as soon as I saw the material, I knew immediately that it was the right one to use. From there I found a couple of packs of silver beads, and a ribbon for the sash. All totalled, it came to about $35 not including the cardboard, felt or assembly materials (thread, glue etc)
For those who want to see the entire process (sped up to run 5 mins long), check this video out:
Of all the things I’ve made on this channel so far, this is the only one that turned out the way I pictured it in my brain. Editing’s going to take awhile. I’ve got about 6 hours of footage to go through, and I want the video to turn out as well as the end product.I’ve got a couple thoughts in my head as to how I’m going to make it both watchable, and useful if you want to make your own. Look for a video near the end of the month, or early next month.
This is really the start of what I’d call my “nerd crafting”. It took me a night (might have been 2, I can’t remember for sure) to cut out the felt, and another night of stitching to put it all together. I eyeballed pretty much the entire doll, so there’s no hope of getting pattern out of this one later. Not that it turned out quite the way I wanted anyways (Face turned out way derpier than I hoped for).
The mask I was wearing was made out of a cardboard sheet that I cut out, and added a couple of grass skirts from a dollar store and stapled a string to the back to hold it onto my head. I wasn’t wearing a shirt under it, so it would look “authentic”. I think I managed to hide my unsightly bits pretty well.
I actually have a LOT more footage of me shaking my proverbial bon-bon, but fortunately (for all involved) I only needed to use a few minutes of it once the crafting section of the video had been sliced and put together.
As for things that I think I’ve improved since then, there’s a few. I try to make the screen a whole lot less tilty, the audio doesn’t pop (this video was “better”, but still had some popping on the left hand side) and the cutting for talking tends to be a great deal tighter.