Custom Plushie Update! Cuy, Daisi, and Shnookums

Here are my latest custom guinea pig plushies. I actually made these a couple of weeks ago, but then I got sick for a week and I got behind on certain things.

Cuy is a handsome silver agouti. He's propped up on a tomato to show off his white tummy.

Daisi is a little black and orange cutie with one white foot.

Shnookums is another sweet black and orange piggy. I love that distinctive white stripe down her nose!

I've got more projects to work on, so I'll be updating again soon. :3

Squeaky Clean

I've taken advantage of the warm weather and gave my guinea girls baths.

Here's Pocky, waiting ever so impatiently to get out of the sink.

My poor wet puffball! She's sitting on my lap right now, wrapped in a bigger dryer towel.

Mochi is looking unamused after the bath she got yesterday.

The boys could use baths too, but we're trying to get them to all play nice together, at which point we'd give them all a bath collectively. I can just see Archie flying out of the tub....

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Abby Guinea Plushies!

I like going to fabric stores just to look for more materials to use for my plushies. I'm always on the lookout for classics as well as some new and fun fur colors. A while ago I found some nice guinea pig appropriate black fur, so I bought the whole bolt. When the fur is packaged at the factory, they fold the fur in half and wrap it around a flat board, making it easy to store and display. After I brought my roll of fabric fuzziness home and unfurled it, I noticed that someone must not have been paying attention when it was rolled up at the factory.... the outside of the fur was smooth and flat, but the fur on the inside was messed up, sticking up in all directions.

So here I am, with several feet of black fur, half of which is smooth and flat and the other half is unusable.

Or is it?

I attempted to brush the fur out with a dog grooming slicker brush, but to no avail. Then I realized I'd seen fur like this before... on guinea pigs. Abyssinian guinea pigs! They're a breed of cavy known for having rosettes all over their bodies, making their fur stick out in all directions. I really hate being wasteful, so this was a great realization. I made a bunch of little abby plushies. Previously, I'd only made abbies as custom piggies, since I'd have to manually twist and pinch the fur into rosettes. Since the fur is already "abbied", I can make these with no additional effort so I sell them at the same price as my other regular plushies. I've listed each plushie individually in both my Artfire shop and my Etsy shop since each one has its own unique fur pattern.

So when life gave me lemons, or in this case messed up fur, I made abby guinea pig plushies!

Sick for a Week, Back with Cookies!

I just got over a cold or flu of some sort, which left me couch-ridden for the greater part of last week. To make matters worse, there's been some really hot weather up here in Oregon lately (with more to come... *groan*). Nothing like 90° weather when you've got a fever. I couldn't look at my laptop for more than a few minutes before my eyes got blurry, so I wasn't on the net. I pretty much stayed on the couch, watching shows like Meerkat Manor and sewing. Luckily I had air conditioning and lots of real fruit popsicles and a considerate boyfriend to expediate my recovery.

I'm back and feeling much better now. I'd made a bunch of plushies before I got sick, but wasn't able to take any photos of them til now. I really hate doing absolutely nothing, even when I'm not feeling well, so I made a LOT of felt snacks for my plushies; carrots and cheese and watermelon and apple slices and orange slices and strawberries. They're easy to make and don't require a huge amount of concentration, so it worked well to keep me busy.

Oh, I made some cookies too.

These mice needed some snacks of their own that matched their cuteness, pink and purple frosted heart-shaped cookies. :3

Pink and Purple Mousies

I have a couple of new additions to my mouse plushie family.

Blush is a ticklish mouse. A very ticklish mouse. So very much so that she developed a permanent blush, and turned completely pink. Blush giggles a lot, and likes sweets so she'll invite herself over for tea and cake... though you may not she her because she's shy and tends to hide.

Remember that day when you were having a snack and you could have sworn you heard your cookies giggling?

"If you keep eating all those berries, your fur is going to turn purple!" a concerned mother said to a young mouse.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever Mom," replied her daughter with disregard. Even a kid like her knew that it was impossible for a mouse's fur to turn purple just from eating a lot of berries.

...right?

Those pink and purple mice remind me of the vibrant colors of this Love Flower Journal. Created by Etsy artist Alternative Journals, it's up for a book raffle on her blog. Leave a comment on her blog and you could be the lucky winner.

My pink and purple mousies are available in both my Artfire shop and my Etsy shop.

Weekend Features #2

Another weekend has come and gone, and along with it another set of features. I do mean to do these more often, as I find some many fun and whimsical items on Etsy and Artfire, but my last few attempts were thwarted by Etsy's downtime for maintenance. I really shouldn't leave this for the last few waning moments of the weekend, but eh, I'm a night person, what can I do?

This weekend's theme is MICE! <:3 )~

Etsy artist Hint has a couple of cute mouse pendants made in silver. If I wasn't allergic to everything but steel and gold I'd so pick one of these up. You can find these as well as other pendant designs in her shop .

This pair of felted baby booties are too cute! I love the little tails. Created by Etsy artist PrettyLittle.

A little grey field mouse adorns this wheel thrown vase by Laurawallstaylor on Etsy. And that white mouse mug is a perfect companion for your morning coffee (or tea, in my case). At last, a sighting of the elusive Mousealope! LittleRobot has this and many other prints in her shop.

What a stylish little mouse, perfect to send a letter in style! WhiskerGraphics on Etsy has this and other cute statinary sets (don't you just love that name?)

Artist nimbusnovem on Etsy has a collection of hand engraved tablets and art boxes. The attention to detail and life-like rendering is quite exceptional.


This last piece is a wonderfully designed ceramic tile by GretchenKramp. I especially like the natural clay color's contrast with the blue.

Hope you enjoyed these whimsical works of art! I'll be back soon with a couple of colorful mice of my own.

New Plushies... Sorta

I guess as an artist one should be always seeking to improve their craft, and when something is presumed finished they should be open to new perspectives that can change their work and allow it as well as the artist to grow. As I was working on my skinny pig plushie I began to see guinea pigs in a different way, as can be expected when one views a furry animal without all the fluff that covers its anatomical features. As a result, I've made a few slight changes to my baby guinea pig plushie pattern. It's not all that much of a difference really, it's only on the head and shape of the face, the rest of the body is unchanged.

Here you can see a pair of baby guinea pig plushies, both made with the same materials. One of them is the older pattern, one is made with my new modifications. Can you tell which is which?

Now it's a little easier to tell. The plushie with the new modifications is the one in front. The differences are slight, but effective.

When you put the two different styles nose to nose you can really see the difference. The newer plushie is on the left, the older style on the right. I adjusted the pattern so that the face is more defined with a more prominent snout. The ears are angled a bit more naturally, the eyes are closer to the top of the head, just like a real cavy. The differences are minimal, if I didn't point them out most people would never have noticed. I figured I'd let everyone know that all my baby piggies from here on will be made with the new pattern, but since the differences are almost indistinguishable I'm not going to update every single plushie listing on DeviantArt or my shops with new photos, but I can always provide photos of the plushie after it's made before i ship it out.

Custom Plushie Update! Jack & Alfred, Lilli & Nelli

Here are the latest custom guinea pig plushies I've done.


These guys, Jack and Alfred, were made with strings attached to them so they could be used as plushie ornaments. I stitched their named into their smooth flannel bellies in embroidery floss that matched their strings.

Lilli and Nelli were made for someone on DeviantArt. They are her dearly departed guinea pigs, Lilli is a himalayan baby piggy plush, Nelli an adult-sized plushie.

I recently picked up some new fur, and still ironing out some details on my skinny pig plushie (making proper wrinkles on a plushie is tough!) so I'll have some more fun projects to post pretty soon.

New Artwork for my Shop

Every listing for an item on Etsy or Artfire has to have at least one image. That's easily handled for most cases, when you have an item that's already been created. But in the case of a custom plushie which hasn't been made yet, I needed to come up with something. I haven't done much two dimensional artwork for quite some time, so I made this drawing. The piggy is the same from my banner up there, but instead of cuddling with a guinea pig plushie he's making one. The pics pinned to the wall are sketches of actual photos of my dearly departed Tiramisu, and there she is, in plushie form.

And in case you're wondering, guinea pigs always use safety scissors. :3

Cherry Bomb the Guinea Pig

Uh oh, here he comes again! All the other guinea pigs scurried out of the way. It's not unlikely for a piggy to get caught up in all sorts of hijinx and misadventures when Cherry Bomb shows up. This fiery red cavy really puts the "pop" in "popcorning", there's never a dull moment when he's around.

I made this crimson cavy with some lovely fur I picked up recently. He's available in both my Artfire and Etsy shops. I've got several other projects in the works, more on those as they get finished.