Sew a Giraffe Softie Baby Toy

I love making homemade personal gifts for baby showers because it's such a fun time in the mother's life.  One of my friends had a baby shower so I wanted to make her a little gift to go with the registry items I bought.  After looking at some of Connor's favorite toys from when he was younger, I picked something that I thought would have appealed to him. The neck and legs are really easy for a baby to grab, the toy jingles, and the little tags are always a hit with babies.


I cut out a giraffe outline that I drew from some images I found online.

Then I traced the template on some fabric for a front and back.

I pinned the two pieces with right sides together and left openings for the taggie ribbons.

This was probably the most difficult part. I cut some small loops and then tried to arrange and pin them so they would look good when they were overlapping.

I put the loops on the INSIDE of the giraffe so that when he's turned right-side out, the loops will be on the outside.

I sewed around the edges, but left a small opening to turn the fabric right-side out.

I filled it with stuffing...

...and then added a small pouch with some jingle bells.

A few stitches by hand will close up the hole and it's done.

Hopefully, the giraffe will be a lot of fun to play with once the little one is a few months old!
And it was a boy! (in case you were wondering...)

DIY Sew a Sock Monkey!

Ok, so I have a slight obsession with sock monkeys. I don't really know how it started, but I love them! Hubby bought me my first sock monkey last year for our anniversary and I was super excited. Since then, I've collected a few more, but I've always wanted to try making my own.

I do a lot of sewing crafts, but for some reason, making a sock monkey really intimidated me. It looks so hard to do and I didn't want to mess it up and ruin it! Hubby convinced me to try it, so I finally bought some Rockford Red Heel socks from Hobby Lobby in the winter. Then it took me another few months to finally get the guts to try it! I'm so glad I did it because it turned out so cute!

There are a lot of sock monkey tutorials out there and I collected a bunch before I did this. After looking through some of them, I liked this one the best. They aren't very detailed, but I was able to figure it out. It also really helped to have my original anniversary sock monkey nearby to look at.

Fox Sox Tutorial
Go here and download the PDF instructions.

I used black buttons for the eyes and hot glued them on. To me, it seemed easier than embroidering them.

How could I not show the butt? So cute!