I guess I was feeling a bit down about my blog in my last entry, but due to all of your lovely comments that feeling is no more! So I have another tutorial for you today. As the stores are so fond of reminding us, there are sixteen days until Easter, which means that you would have lots of time to make these little critters en masse if you so desire.



This one's really simple. I know for a fact that children make face cloth animals because while going through my mother's cedar chest last weekend looking for baby clothes we found a bunny that I'd made for my mother when I was a child. The face cloth chick is a more recent innovation of mine based on the bunny design. The "donut holes" created by folding the face cloths is a great place to hold treats -- I find that an average-sized face cloth is just the right size to hold a Cadbury cream egg. Alternately, you can use these little guys as napkin rings. Going one step further, you can use the folding technique as an interesting way of presenting a gift like a baby blanket/burp cloth/package of dish towels. Of course, if you plan on using the face cloth (or whatever you're replacing it with) again, skip the sewing and/or gluing steps. As a temporary measure, you can affix the animals' features with a bit of masking tape or double-sided scrapbooking tape.


Face Cloth Bunny

Materials:
- face cloth
- narrow ribbon(s)
- 2 googly eyes
- 2 pompoms (one large for the tail, one smaller for the nose)
- needle and thread to match the face cloth and/or hot glue gun



1) Take a face cloth and lay it out flat.



2) Fold the face cloth in half diagonally.




3) Tightly roll the face cloth triangle into a tube, starting with the upper right-hand corner so that you end up with the long fold at the end of the roll.



4) Still holding the tube tightly, fold the tube in half.



5) Fold the tube in half again, this time so that the two ends (what will become the "ears") end up over the previously-folded side (what will become the "donut hole" area).



6) Tie a ribbon (or ribbons) tightly around the face cloth about 2/3 of the way down, away from the "donut hole."



7) At this point, if you angle the two ends upward, you can see the basic bunny shape.



8) Turn the bunny so that the ears are facing away from you. Using a thread colour that matches your face cloth, make small stitches where there is any loose fabric. There will almost always be loose fabric near the folds.

If you're not into sewing, you can tack the loose fabric down with hot glue. If you use hot glue you won't be able to take the bunny apart and use the face cloth later, though!



9) Turn the bunny so that the "face" is pointed towards you, and stitch/glue the seam down the middle closed.



10) Tie the ribbon(s) into a bow; secure the bow with a couple of stitches or a bead of glue. On the bunny's face, sew/glue on googly eyes and a small pompom for a nose.



11) Sew/glue on a larger puffy pompom for the tail. You're all done!

If you choose to be creative you can add flowers, mini plastic Easter eggs, or felt cut-outs to your bunny as decoration. But you can also keep the bunny simple.



Face Cloth Chick

Materials:
- face cloth
- narrow ribbon(s)
- 2 googly eyes
- small piece of yellow felt
- needle and thread to match the face cloth and/or hot glue gun



1) Take a face cloth and lay it out flat.



2 Fold the face cloth in half diagonally.



3) Tightly roll the face cloth triangle into a tube, starting with the upper right-hand corner so that you end up with the long fold at the end of the roll.



4) Stitch or glue the long folded edge of the face cloth down to the roll so that it will stay roll-shaped even when you're not holding it.



5) Fold the tube in half.



6) Fold each of the halves in half again so that your face cloth tube kind of looks like the letter "M".



7) Tie a ribbon (or ribbons) tightly around the face cloth about 2/3 of the way up, away from the "donut hole" and close to the top of the "M".



8) Tightly stitch/glue together the creases that the folds have created on the front, back, and top of the "M". At this point, you should be able to see the basic shape of the chick.



9) Tie the ribbon(s) into a bow; secure the bow with a couple of stitches or a bead of glue.



10) Cut a small diamond shape out of felt, fold it in half and stitch/glue it onto the same side as the bow to create a beak. Stitch/glue on a pair of googly eyes.



11) Cut out a jagged "M" shape of felt to serve as the chick's feet.



12) Sew/glue the feet to the bottom of the chick. They should provide enough of a base that the chick will stay standing up if you set it that way.

You're done!


All in all, each of these face cloth animals cost me about $1.00 each to make. (87¢ per cloth, plus a couple pennies for the googly eyes, ribbon, pompoms and/or felt scraps) I could have made more expensive ones by using super-thick face cloths, or made them cheaper by using the really thin 30-for-$5.00 economy face cloths. But I found that budget-wise this was a good compromise.