What's his name, Mr. Bauble Bunting or Mr. Potato?

I made this little Soft Toy as a birthday present for a friend. I gave him the name "Mr. Bauble Bunting" inspired by christmas baubles and bunting. It's a catchy name that resulted in my boyfriend singing his name in Jamaican reggae style (and became a tune that sticks to your head!). 

Since the actual Birthday party, Mr. Bauble Bunting had a name change, because everyone called him Mr. Potato man. I guess this name does fit much better!

One of my favourite parts in the process is picking the colour scheme. 

The felt is available in so many wonderful bright colours, which makes it fun to experiment with.

My choice of a 5 colours scheme was: yellow, pastel green, pink, orange and turquoise.

You will need:

- Felt (5x different colours)

- Plain fabric (I used Lenda Beige from IKEA)

- Pearl Cotton thread or a fabric pen

- Pencil

- Scissors

- Cardboard for the stencil

- Pins

- Sewing thread / needle

- Ribbon

Quick tutorial

1. I made a stencil out of cardboard and marked the shape onto the fabric with a pencil. Then I 

    cut around the shape creating a 1 cm boarder to have some overlapping fabric for when 

    sewing the back and front together later in the process.

2. I cut a few felt triangles from each colour and placed them on the fabric. Then I fixed 

    triangles of the same colour in a row with needles (when attached like this, you can sew 

   easily over them with the sewing machine).

3. I sewed twice over the row of felt triangles. 

4. Then I repeated the procedure with the next row of felt triangles...

5. ... until the rows were complete. 

6. I drew the face with a fabric pen and then stitched the lines with the indigo pearl cotton 

    thread. I cut out two little circles of the pink felt to use as cheeks and hand sewed them onto 

    the face.

7. I used some ribbons for the hair and sewed them to the fabric pointing inwards.

8. I fixed the overlapping felt with needles, so that when I sew the insides together with the

    sewing machine, they won't be caught in-between the seam.

8. Then I turned the toy inside out and stuffed it with wadding. 

One of my favourite moments when making soft toys is the moment when you finally can turn the inside out. Then you finally get to see how the idea works out, and how the soft toy comes to life.

I guess it's up to my friend to get to know him better, she has him now - so I can't tell you much about this guy. 
I will ask her though next time I see her how he's doing :)

Have you ever made a present, where the recipient of the gift saw something else in it and named/used it differently?