aprylstottdesign.com Blog

Once, when I was a kid, I looked at my arm and realized I had a skeleton inside me. And it totally freaked me out. Sure, I knew in theory that I had a set of bones holding my body upright, but I’d never really thought about what was inside my skin keeping my body going. Luckily I’d avoided any serious health crisis, so I hadn’t spent much time considering my innerds. Apparently my imagination was too busy creating soap operas with the Strawberry Shortcake Dolls & My Little Pony crew. Imagine my delight when I got the gig for this little number, an OVERSIZED teacher book for teachin’ 1st graders about their bodies (Oversized as in 15×20″. That, my friends, is big):

Thanks to a fabulous reference book from my local library (shout out to Librarian Mary Claire for her excellent suggestions), I was able to get past my squeamish tendencies to actually enjoy working on a book about our guts.

My most super favorite clients called with this job. Wanna know how much I know about baseball? The art director reviewed my sketch & said, “It’s great! But can you give the kid a catchers mit?” Catchers mitt? What is catcher’s mitt?

I also got to work on a super fun project for one of my other favorite kids mags. It was a rush job, but despite the quick turn-around I’m still happy with the results:

Now I’m off to finish the next set of projects. What are YOU working on?

I went through a brief phase when I was a kid, the “Little House On The Prairie” phase where I wanted everything to be old-fashioned. I took up needlepoint for about 2.5 seconds (alas, my “Cats Are People Too” sampler was never finished. Too bad, how awesome would that be on our wall?) I wore dresses every day. EVERY DAY. I would make two braids in my hair & wind them on top of my head. My biggest project: I attempted to sew. Mom just though I was making a mess, but my intent was to make a dress. And shoes. And a gingham skirt (I had no idea what this “gingham” was, but Laura was always talking about it).

Fast forward to now. I no longer want to be “Old Fashioned”. I am just fine buying my clothes in a store. And I cannot sew. But Ella wanted to make a stuffed animal for her new baby cousin. And that’s how this came to be:

“Ummmmm, great. But what is it?” you may ask? It’s a Kitty-Bear-Unicorn! Of course!

Side View:

And Back View:

Kitty-Bear-Unicorn has popcorn seeds in his feet. And bells in his belly. (They don’t ring cause they’re surrounded by stuffing. It makes it sound like a rattle, we put about 5 in there. Ella & I had a long discussion on the pros & cons of bell inclusion. She decided it was a good idea. Sometimes I think she just wants to have long discussions…)

I know, it’s a little sad looking. And his head is really really floppy. But considering these were the plans we went off of, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out (note where Ella helped with color plans by indicating where it should be pink):

And considering this was a 3-Sunday-project, I don’t think we’ll be making any more stuffed animals any time soon…