Oh Deer!

I went on a walk through the woods this morning and a few little critters followed me home...


Marmalade Deer likes to have tea parties with her deer friends on Wednesdays at precisely two o'clock in the afternoon. She serves chocolate cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles for dessert. Yum!


Red Velvet Cake Deer likes to collect vintage picture frames and paint them all kinds of bright colours. She frames her baby deer's hoof paintings and hangs them on the wall. She is so proud of her baby deer.



Thanks for looking!
~Emily~
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New Deer Plush

I hope all the Americans are having a Happy Thanksgiving! If you're not celebrating it today, I hope you have a great weekend! : ) Anyways, I just wanted to show the two new deer I've made:

Banana Blueberry
Banana Blueberry Deer is a successful interior decorator in Deerville. She loves to decorate in a retro design scheme with very bold colours. Her favourite addition to any room is a hanging bubble chair.


Orange Fizz Deer
Orange Fizz Deer works in a soda shop where he sells all kinds of sodas from around the world. His favourites are Jarritos from Mexico, Spetzi from Germany, and Orange Crush from the USA.



Thanks for looking!
~Emily~
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Deer Plush

I've been sewing like crazy to complete deer plushies in time for the holiday rush. I've re-designed my deer plushies to be bigger, I've enhanced certain features (like their noses, ears and legs), and I think they're cuter, too! ^_^ Each of them have their own unique character backstories (like all my plushies do). This is Chocolate Deer:

"Chocolate Deer is a famous Chocolatier at the local chocolate shop in Deerville. This shop is known for its groundbreaking new flavour combinations. Chocolate with berries and acorns is the most popular type of truffle amongst her fans."


You can read more of their backstories here.


And last but not least, here's an in-progress photo of my work space. (I have more pics of my studio here.)


Thanks for looking!
~Emily~
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Etsy Plush Team: State Fair (Sideshow)

The theme of Plush Team's current challenge is "State Fair", with three categories, one being "Sideshow Creatures". I was attracted to this category immediately, because I felt I could have the most creative freedom with it. I thought of conjoined twins right off the bat, when two French girls suddenly appeared in my head. Although Sideshows are in very bad taste, it was often the only line of work for people who were disfigured. Instead of making conjoined twins as part of a freak show type environment, I decided to give them a very fortunate upbringing. I would like to introduce Georgette & Lisette:



Georgette & Lisette are heiresses to a very large French fortune. Their parents have made sure to bring up their conjoined girls in a proper and civilized manner, therefore they must have perfect hair, perfect manners, and they must dress in frilly things at all times. After all, they must be presentable for their parents' frequent dinner guests. Although Georgette & Lisette have been showered with more gifts than they know what to do with, their favourite toy in the world is their black stuffed bear, Sébastien. They squabble over who gets to hold him, which once resulted in an unfortunate incident where Sébastien lost an eye. The girls are quite well-mannered otherwise, although they still will not reveal to me which one is Georgette and which one is Lisette.




Thanks for looking!
~Emily~
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Personal Project: Creating my own Muse in plush form

This post is all about Mei Li. She is my Muse in plush form.

I've been wanting to create my own personal muse for a while now, and this week I was finally able to bring my design to life!

The first time I started thinking about what my own muse would look like is when I bought The Faerie's Oracle tarot deck a couple of years ago (by one of my favourite artists Brian Froud). The deck comes with 66 cards that are beautifully illustrated, however, the zero card is completely blank. This card is called "The Guide", and it is left blank with the intention of the owner completing it with their own personal muse. I never knew what to do with this card -- what did my muse look like? What if I got it wrong? Looking back I'm not surprised that I didn't know at that time. I would not be on my own personal art journey until a few years later, when my husband and I moved to the States. Then, just a couple of weeks ago when I was working on Plush Team's favourite childhood plush project, an idea for a plush design popped out at me. I immediately had to draw her out. I knew that she was a white rabbit spirit girl, with white hair and grey skin.


[She's the one with the heart on her chest.]

Mei Li represents my muse, a white rabbit zombie girl. Mei Li used to work in a turn-of-the-century travelling carnival. You know, the type with fire eaters, a freak show, exotic animals and trapeze acts. Her act involved acrobatics and white rabbits. Mei Li's act was quite good, but the ringmaster kept pressuring her to make her performance more and more dangerous -- for the enjoyment of the crowd (and to fill his pockets). Mei Li didn't like the ringmaster too much, but unfortunately life as a carnie is limited, and it leaves a strange little girl with really no other options in life. Mei Li agreed to increase the risks in her act, but something went terribly wrong and suddenly Mei Li's life was over. But for some reason, she remained in this world as a wandering ghostly zombie girl. Mei Li took interest me when I was just a little girl. Maybe my clumsiness reminded her of herself, or my love of rabbits. Whatever the case, this strange little zombie girl has been my inspirational muse ever since.



I decided to name her "Mei Li", after some of the Mandarin characters (梅李) that are used to make my name, Emily. I made sure that I used the Alice In Wonderland fabric, and put the white rabbit on her front, to really keep with the theme. (Alice is on her back.) And of course she needed her own White Rabbit buddy! I chose to give her hair buns to represent rabbit ears. ^_^


[Here are a couple in-progress shots. Lucky insists on sitting right next to me as I work. ♥]

I used a new technique on her that I've been dying to use on a plushie! (Well, it's not really new, but I haven't used it on dolly plushies yet.) I gave her smokey eyes and blushed cheeks using pastels, and applyed them with q-tips. I've used this technique on my doll customs (you can really tell on my Holly). It gives it a really neat look that you can't get with fabric or thread.

Mei Li is now on display with my other favourite toys. ♥




[Oh, now that we're all finished, it's time for a nap! ^_^]


Thanks for looking!
~Emily~
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The Little Mermaid: PlushTeam's Fairytale Project

Hi! This is my first post here at The Needle. Thank-you for letting me join in on the fun, too! ♥

The Little Mermaid plush was made for the Fairytale Project with Etsy's Plush Team. We were each partnered up with another member, and had to create a plushie based on our partner's favourite fairytales. My partner (the very talented Area Thrifty One) chose The Little Mermaid as her favourite fairytale. She's a big fan of the Hans Christian Anderson version, and has never seen the Disney version of this story, although she loves a very tragic anime version of the story that premiered in 1979. So, I wanted to try and make my plush capture the emotions of the original fairytale, stay away from the one that is heavily merchandised, but possibly keep her animated looking. After several sketches and hours of work, this is what I came up with:



Area Thrifty One said that she really likes the darkness that fairytales have (I have to agree with her!). She loves The Little Mermaid sculpture in Copenhagen, because she looks so sad as she stares out at sea, since she is not really part of the land, and she is no longer a part of the sea.



At first I thought of giving The Little Mermaid legs and feet, try to show her sadness of being removed from the sea, but then I thought she wouldn't really look like The Little Mermaid upon first glance (and there's no way I could come close to replicating the famous statue in Copenhagen!). So I decided to keep her in mermaid form, but to make her sad, and to definitely stay away from the identifiable Disney colours. ^_~ I added netting on the blue background to symbolize her feeling of being trapped. There are a couple of starfish trapped in the net, too. ^_^


Thanks for looking!
~Emily~
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