Creepy Crafting: Upcycling A Bag Charm For Valentines.

This newest creepy crafting project was inspired by Valentine's Day or rather, Valloween!

I had recently bought a cheap 'blind box' rather impulsively and although the charm was cute, it just wasn't my style and as I am trying to consume things a bit more mindfully these days I decided to upcycle it into one I did want.

I'd had my eye on a couple of devil figures from various IP's for a while so I decided to raid my scrap bin, how any good creepy craft project starts, and see what I had and where that would take me. I couldn't find any red faux fur which was my hope at first so I decided instead to make my devil red and black as I did have red fleece and black faux fur. The colour palette and look of my little devil design was partly inspired by those little 90s devil toys I used to see everywhere growing up.

Step 1: Taking apart the original. This was pretty easy and was mainly just me using a seam ripper to get the face out and then cutting the plastic hands and feet parts free.

Step 2: This was where the fun began. I started by sewing a head shape, stuffing some filling back in to shape it and then hot gluing the plastic face in. I also used a Sharpie to add some details, little hearts, to the face as the pen doesn't rub off.

Step 3: Making the horns was next. Fleece is so easy to work with so I just sewed a rough shape on my machine, stuffed them and then stitched them to the fabric of the head.

Step 4: I then sewed a body, just a rough oval shape and stuffed it. Then added a little Jester inspired fringe collar and glued some pom poms onto the end of the collar for some added detail. As the seam between the head and the neck was a little rough I glued a little bit of faux fur to cover it.

Step 5: I then sewed 2 arms from faux fur and turned the ends in on themselves to give me something to glue the plastic hands into. This worked surprisingly well!

Step 6: Once I was happy with the arms I sewed them onto the main body. I then added a little tartan heart to the body with some scarp fleece.

Step 7: For the legs I did a similar thing to the arms but with fleece. I sewed the leg shape, stuffed them and doubled the end over so I could glue the plastic feet in.

Step 8: I then sewed the legs onto the body. Originally I was going to leave them red but I decided I didn't like it and eventually covered them with more faux fur scraps.

Step 9: Next up was the devil tail. For this I used some paper covered wire I had in my craft stash and just covered it in red fleece. This was a bit fiddly so I sewed it by hand and then added a little heart on the end for an extra Valentines detail.

Step 10: I then decided to cover the the edge of the face with a little fur and cover the legs too. This gave the look of a little furry creature wearing a devil costume, which I loved.

Step 11: I wasn't completely happy with the shape at this stage so I decided to seam rip the bottom of the body open, shorten the body and add more padding to change it to a rounder shape. Once the body and legs were all sewed up I was much happier with the shape.

Step 12: Finally I added a little more detail to the face, freckles and fangs, and then sewed the charm ribbon back on and it was complete!

I'm really happy with how it turned out. The original charm was £4.99 and then all the fabric I used was scrap I already had so it was a really cheap project and in the end it only took about 2 and a half hours. Definitely a fun project for a Sunday morning.

Sarah Xx