Create Some Preschooler Friendly Hedgehog Wall Art

I found the cutest applique project over at Izzy & Ivy Designs. Perfect for sewing on to a t-shirt or a onesie.  I started thinking about how I could turn this into a Rainbow friendly project and here’s what I came up with….

I prepped steps 1-3 ahead of time….

1. Head over to Izzy & Ivy Designs and snag their Henrietta the Hedgehog applique template. Print template and cut out the pieces.

2. Trace the hedgehog body(piece number 1) on to a large piece of good sturdy art paper. Draw in the eyes and mouth. I used pencil first, then a nice thick black marker over top, to get that colouring book look.  Once you give the marker a moment to dry you can go back in with an eraser and clean away any remaining pencil marks.

3. To give you a guide of where to line up the pieces for gluing down you might want to trace the entire hedgehog (I ended up doing this later on when I realized I needed to know where to start the back end at).

Cut out the full-sized guide and lightly trace the back end in pencil

3. Using the template pieces, cut fabric scraps to size. I just pinned the paper cut outs to the fabric and cut following the pattern edge.  Pay attention, in that the pieces have a top and bottom, so make sure you have them oriented correctly on the fabric before cutting.

Here’s where I got the Rainbow involved…

4. She got to pick out a coloured pencil and her colour in the hedgehog body.

5.  Then I used a paint brush to brush decoupage glue onto the paper. (I am guessing white glue would work just as well.) I handed the fabric pieces over to her and let her place them. She needed a little help lining them up but really enjoyed smoothing each piece down.

Set the fabric pieces up in order on the guide. They need to be placed in reverse order, bottom furthest back piece first. The bottom and top are different sizes, make sure they are orientated the correct way or they won’t line up quite right.

6.  I let Rainbow go through the “button bin” and pick out some buttons for Hedgehog’s nose and cheek, which I then used a dab of decoupage glue to stick down.  For the nose she chose a cute orange button which was rounded and unsuitable for gluing down.  I sewed the rounded button to one with a flat bottom and glued that down instead.

Done? Not quite.

7.  Once it was done I decided to go back in and trace around the outside edge with black marker to give it a more uniform look.

Overall I think it turned out pretty cool.  I’m thinking of framing it and hanging it in her room.  More importantly, Rainbow had a blast making this with me.  She loved picking out the fabric and sorting through the buttons. She also really enjoyed playing with all the leftover scraps of cloth and paper. She often gets frustrated with the fact that her art doesn’t look like what she intends. She was really proud to have created something instantly recognizable as a hedgehog.

Our finished hedgehog….

Once I’ve found a cheap frame to hold it., I will use a ruler to square this off and trim it to fit. I’m guessing I’ll have to take the glass out to accommodate the large rounded nose.

An older child could paint the glue on and get involved with cutting out the paper patterns, or even the cloth.  Also, it doesn’t have to be cloth, but could instead be made with scraps of patterned paper or whatnaught.  I’ve been told this hedgehog is very lonely and needs a family so we’ll be making at least one more of these some time soon.  Let me know if you try it out.