Baby Label Lion

My little baby daughter LOVES labels.  If I buy her a new soft toy, you can guarantee the most exciting partof it for her is the label, not the bright shiny parts or the noises it makes!  So with that in mind I decided to make my own baby toy using LOTS of labels which I had cut out of old clothes.  It was a very simple toy which took only about 40mins to make, so you could even do it in your baby's naptime!

 1.  Gather your material.  You will need an old carrier bag, lots of fabric clothes labels, some yellow cotton cloth, some stuffing (I used some from an old cushion) and some embroidery thread.  You will also need a sewing machine and a needle.

2. Cut 2 circles from the cloth and from the carrier bag.  My circles were about 20cm in diameter.  Take one circle and lay your labels all around the edge facing inwards, like above and pin them in place (I didnt bother as Im a bit lazy!) and sew the labels in place using your sewing machine.  Sew approximately 0.5cm from the edge of the circle. Stitch round the circle a couple of times to make sure the labels are extra secure.

3. next you need to sandwich all your components together.  So the sandwich should go in the following order, starting from the bottom of the sandwich:

-a circle of carrier bag

-the blank yellow cotton fabric

-the yellow cotton fabric with the labels sewn on (this MUST have the labels facing downwards so the labels are sandwiched between the two pieces of cotton, if you lay it so that the labels face upwards, when you come to turn the fabric lion the right way out after sewing you will find the labels inside the lion instead of acting as his mane!)

-a circle of carrier bag.

Once you have then sandwiched together in the right order you can pin the layers in place and sew round the edge, 1cm from the edge of the circle but DON'T SEW ALL THE WAY ROUND, leave a gap of about 5cm.  Next turn the lion the right way out through the gap you have left.

4. Next embroider a cute face on the front of your lion, like this:

5.  Stuff your lion with the toy stuffing.  Sew up the gap in your lion by hand and Hey Presto, you have a crinkly crunchy labelly lion.