Holiday Snails

Snails are pretty cool. If you are a little boy, you might like them because they are slimy and have a nice "ick" factor about them. If you are a little girl, you might like them because they are slow and cute. I mean, they have retractable eyeballs for goodness sake! What could be more interesting than that? So for round 3 of toy making, I have tried my hand at the almighty snail.

This was going to be a fun addition to baby Z's homemade toy collection, but she went straight for the giant button on the side and would have spent all day trying to rip it off if I hadn't intervened to save poor Snail's life.

Making Snail was pretty easy (though time consuming) once I had the general design in mind. I used the blank side of some leftover paper to draw out the design to make a pattern. For Snail, there were 3 distinct planes (Bottom, Sides, and Shell), for a total of 5 cloth cutouts. I should have taken pictures of the process, but I was too busy being confused about how to sew it all together, so maybe next time. And there will be a next time! Snail took forever to sew, partly because I did it in the wrong order and ended up having to hand sew a good portion of her. Now I know better, so I should be whipping out a whole herd of Snails in the future...minus the button of course.