How to make your own... Buckle Bear...

Right now Little E is about 18 months old and really really really into BUCKLES!! Every buckle that she can find seems to occupy her little hands for hours. It wasn't until recently that she mastered the art of the buckle and is still fascinated with buckling and unbuckling everything. And the more things that keep my little 18 month old "busy" the better!! At least my poor house that gets trashed every morning at 7am thinks so..hehe. Jaime recently sent me a link to a website called  Buckley Boo. It is where I got my inspiration! And Little E is at the perfect age to start working on smaller motor skills and the concept of matching colors.                                  For awhile now I have been wanting to make a "busy book" for Little E, but was afraid that it was going to take me too long. Not to mention she is really not into any other part of those books besides the buckles. So I thought why not make my own.... and make it entirely with buckles.. and instead of making a buckle book..make a buckle bear!!

This little guy makes the perfect gift and only took me an hour or two to make. And if you are like me then you already have an assortment of stuffed animals at your disposal to work with so the only thing I had to buy at the store was the buckles and ribbon. (Most of the ribbon I already had, but I wanted to do a rainbow)

Supplies:

One cute and fuzzy stuffed animal (preferably with a long body)

Buckles ( I found mine at Joann's in the sewing section)

Ribbon

Basic Sewing Supplies

1. The first thing I did was measure and cut all my ribbon and then pinned 

it around the bear to make sure that it would all fit and buckle easily.

2. Then I took it all to my sewing machine and hemmed each end of ribbon and then 

sewed it into place around the buckle.

A view of the ribbon from the front and back.

Once all my ribbon was sewn onto my buckles I wrapped them all around the bear

and used embroidery thread and hand sewed each ribbon piece to the back of the bear. This way Little E can't remove the ribbons from the bear. This is how the back of the bear looked when I was done.

This is a view of the front of the bear when it was finished. It's just too stinkin cute!!

And now the fun part!!!

This little bear was a lot of fun to make but what's even better is the fact that Little E will not put it down! Once she buckles him all up she puts him in her little stroller and takes him on a walk. She even had to bring him with her to church on Sunday!