Soft Dolls and Art Toys Archives - Page 11 of 50 - Ruffing’s

Posted on July 9, 2012July 28, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Custom slugs and some more sock toads

This is Buddy the Hug Me Slug. Buddy has a special mission. He was ordered by such a nice lady, to give comfort and cheer to her friend who is going through some difficult challenges right now. So that he would be full of extra love, I gave him two hearts, one on top of the other, purple for bravery, and red for love. Teal is her favorite color. I was so glad I had some teal fleece, when I was asked.

I tried to fill him with well wishes, and I hope his new friend will be all better soon. He went on his way this morning. I added a pretty card and gift bag so he would arrive in style.

This grass green slug went to welcome a new baby boy into the world,

and this purple slug went to welcome someone home.

I finished up more Hug Me Sock Toads, in shades of orange.

These three polka-dotted toads look like they are wearing white undies, so I’m told.

New toys will be posted in our Ruffing’s shop.

I got all those batik Hug Me Bugs and Hug Me Slugs I was working on last time I wrote, posted too.

I leave a path of fabric scraps and paper in my wake.

I often find these sticky-backed paper hearts stuck to the bottoms of my feet, and to the soles of my shoes. A friend said this is a photo showing “both heart and sole” 🙂

My kitty helpers have been napping a lot in the heat.

Some of them are very good at passing out.

Some look like they are dreaming of acrobatics,

or sailing through the air.

But they help whenever they can. Kitties love crafts projects in between naps.

Bertie is hiding from everyone here. No one could possibly ever find her.

Just look how inconspicuous she is.

Posted on June 19, 2012July 28, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

All eyed and hearted

This is what I’ve been up to for the past two weeks. I picked up more batiks, feeling inspired after going to a trunk show that featured colorful paper-pieced quilts by Deb Karasik.

I started with greens. I finished the edges of my fabric and prewashed it before I cut and sewed a batch of Hug Me Slugs and Hug Me Bugs.

The batik toys, and cotton toys in general, take more time to make and are a fussier to work with than the fleece toys, with so many curves to clip and Fray Check on the inside.

After the machine sewing and the stuffing are done, the hand sewing begins. Their bottoms are sewn on by hand. I embroidered their smiles and attached the whites of their eyes with a blanket stitch and floss. They looked like zombies. Then I moved on to the hearts and pupils. Now they can see!

I still have to photograph them individually, and post them in my Etsy toy shop.

Hope everyone enjoyed Father’s Day. This is my dad holding me when I was new to the world.

Our lawn was covered with and abundance of pretty dandelions this week, and the butterfly bushes and the shoal creek chaste tree have been in bloom.

The bees and butterflies love them, and they are such beautiful shades of lavender, blue, and purple.

The one above is the shoal creek chaste tree, and below are the two, the butterfly bush arching over the other.

And this is a special sleepy cat flower.

Posted on June 7, 2012July 28, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

A couple of slugs for Thursday

These Hug Me Slugs have already been spoken for and are on their way to their new homes, but I thought I share them anyway. I finished them today.

I also thought I’d share this mysterious pile of night-traveling newspapers. This was a three-cat job, at least.

Posted on May 31, 2012July 28, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Replenishing the toad population

I was fresh out of toads this morning. The last Hug Me Toad I had ready is heading off to the Netherlands. I can’t do without toads.

I got this pink one done and posted this afternoon. I will be posting my new handmade stuffed animal toys in our Ruffing’s shop.

I’ve had to take a couple of detours to do computer junk.

My WordPress blog theme wasn’t displaying right. I lost some of my widgets on my sidebar, and gained an extra menu at the top of my page. Unfortunately, I didn’t save a copy of the last version of my theme before the latest update. I tried to change it to an alternate theme, but for some reason, it didn’t change anything, except that it ate some of my widgets. The message at the top of the admin page said all my widgets would be put back where I had them, but some went missing.

After trying various advice, and trial and error, I finally got rid of the extra menu by going into my theme’s stylesheet and changing this:

.menu {
/*width:940px;*/
float: right;

to this:

.menu {
display:none;
}

I was relieved to have figured that part out, but I still had, and still have, some missing widgets from my sidebar. At least I know how to put new widgets up, when I get a chance. It took a while to get my Sitemeter widget back, so I can see view my website traffic.

Aperture, one of the programs I use to edit and organize photos, wasn’t cooperating with me the day before. It was too full. It wouldn’t even open so I could delete anything. It seems to be functioning again, after cleaning out the trash I’d forgotten to empty. I’d forgotten Aperture has its own trash folder in addition to the main one for the computer. I get annoyed having to take time fiddling with computer/software issues. Thankfully, most of the time, everything goes smoothly.

Phoebe finally got Zoomie to give her a bath today, like he does for Bertie. She has been shyly approaching him, pushing her forehead under his chin. She was so happy. After her bath, they took a nap in the sunshine together. Zoomie is going to have paws full with the two girls asking for his attention.