Little Critter Pal Fabric Fun

I just love the Little Critter Pals (and coordinating Critter Pals) from Clear and Simple Stamps.  One of my favorite things about them, aside from the variety of cute animals, is that the sets include several different sizes of each animal.  The different sized animals give you lots of options for creating all kinds of coordinating projects.  Today, I’m going to show you how I created a sweet baby gift ensemble using some of the stamps and dies from the Little Critter Pals series released in Collection 7 along with fabric and CSS’s ink.  You can see the finished onesie and blanket in the photo above.

I picked up some cozy flannel remnants at my local fabric store to use for the project.  I started off by ironing some fusible adhesive (I used Heat 'n Bond brand) onto my fabric, following the direction on the packaging. Once that was done, I arranged the dies I wanted to use on the fabric pieces , then ran the dies and fabric through my die cutting machine. I used two of the different shaped dies for my project.  Once backed with the fusible adhesive, the fabric cuts nicely with CSS’s dies. You can still see the perforated details that help give the critters character!

Let’s look at the blanket first. I arranged all of the die cut pieces that make up Ellie on the blanket, then used my iron to adhere her to the blanket, again following the directions on the package. Super quick and easy! If you’re a good seamstress, you can add machine stitching around the edges for a really finished look—I’m not, so I didn’t even bother trying!

Here’s a closer look at the onesie. Putting this one together was a lot like paper piecing a stamped image, except with fabric. I started by stamping the Ellie image from the Little Critter Pals 3 set on each of the die cut fabric pieces I’d be using to assemble her. CSS’s inks stamp beautifully on fabric without bleeding and can be machine washed, too.

Then I used my fabric scissors to cut apart the pieces, keeping the purple dotted die cut piece intact as the base and filling in the different body parts with bits and pieces from the pink and white die cut pieces. See, just like paper piecing!

Once I was done, I ironed the finished Ellie on to the onesie.

I finished it off by stamping the “lil’ peanut” sentiment beneath Ellie in CSS’s VIP Purple ink. Be sure to place a piece of cardboard between the front and back of the onesie when you do this to ensure that the ink doesn’t bleed through.

These make such a great gift and are easy to customize just by changing up the fabric choices and colors--and even the animal used. How cute would the lion or frog be on one of these??

I'm linking this post up to this week's Happy Hour Friday linky party at Happy Hour Projects.

Materials Used:
Little Critter Pals 3 stamp set, Perfect Little Black Dress and VIP Purple inks, Build-a-Critter Pal: Basics, Build-a-Critter Pal Elephant/Bunny, Little Critter Pals dies (Clear and Simple Stamps); Heat 'n Bond; assorted flannel fabric remnants