PaleoGirl Crafts

These 3 Eocene plushes I made are going to be used as educational pieces for the JOIDES Resolution drilling research vessel as they drill for Eocene (~50 million year old) sediments in the Atlantic through June and July. They will be featured in videos and ship to shore video chats with schools in New Zealand and Australia and even to Bryce Canyon National Park. They’re going to have a contest on their FB page to give them names hehe

Here is the link to their webpage for anyone that’s curious! http://joidesresolution.org/

(Source: paleogirlcrafts.etsy.com)

Opabinia. A little bit of the process on making an Opabinia plush. Opabinia are found in the fantabulous Burgess Shale! This one was a custom color request from an Etsy customer. I love when requests come with fun color combos.

(Source: paleogirlcrafts.etsy.com)

Parasaurolophus plush. I was asked to make a Parasaurolophus plush based on a young boy(future paleontologist)’s favorite dinosaur model. I am a big fan of Parasaurolophus and the person requesting is incredibly kind, so of course I was more than willing to give it a try. It turned out pretty cute! A little more as though the dino model had gone on a diet…and its legs could no longer support itself, but it is still more than willing to be a bed time snuggle pal. Dinosaurs don’t need to stand all the time anyways. It’s just showing off really ;)

(Source: paleogirlcrafts.etsy.com)

Ammonite keychains. A little peek (a peek just because I was too lazy to document more of the process) of the creation of my new Ammonite keychains. I hope to carry these as constant items in my Etsy shop like the Eurypterid keychains. All of these have sold already, but hopefully I’ll have a chance to make more soon!

(Source: paleogirlcrafts.etsy.com)

Treveropyge Trilobite keychain. This was a request I was working on for an Etsy customer. Treveropyge Trilobites are known for their very large convex eyes. This is the first time I’ve used wire and beads on a plush, but I think it conveys the general compoundy-ness I was going for. :) And they look angry. Not quite the usual ‘adorable’ end result for me, but maybe that’s because I went a little bit more realistic (probably not color-wise, though hehe).

(Source: fossilsplus.com)

Here are the plush versions I made of creatures found in the Burgess Shale. The first image is one of the many illustrations that exist that depicts a still shot of what the Burgess Shale looked like during the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago (if all the creatures stopped to pose together for a family photo during their yearly picnic). I haven’t made all of the Burgess Shale critters yet, but maybe some day! And actually now that I look at it a couple of the ones I have made aren’t featured in the family photo. Oops.

(Source: rudhro.wordpress.com)

The inspiration and the resulting plush (keychain). This was my first introduction to the weird and wonderful Walliserops Trilobite. I have since made them into full size plushes and even scarves.

(Source: paleogirlcrafts.etsy.com)

One of the inspiration images and the resulting plush. This is the extinct whorl tooth shark Helicoprion.

(Source: hinchu.blogspot.com)

How to make a Quetzalcoatlus plush (not really). Ok, so this really isn’t going to be helpful if you’re planning on making your own, but I’ll give brief insight into my haphazard process.

1) Make a pattern. Make sure to accidentally start it out too big, and then have the whole thing be gigantic to keep it proportional just because you were too lazy to use up your eraser from the get go. I only ever draw half a pattern onto a folded piece of paper so that it’s a mirror image on the other side. Saves a lot of time and luckily most of my plushies are symmetrical like that. Oh and if you can awkwardly tape more and more pieces of random paper together to accommodate your rapidly expanding pattern that makes it even better. I generally use just 20lb computer paper as that is what is convenient.

2) Trace your awkward pattern onto your fabric. I use a purple fabric pen that you can get in almost any craft store. It disappears after a day or so so you don’t have to try to wash it off. Very convenient! (I go through a lot of them). Make sure your pattern stays still by using random objects around you to weigh it down. Quetzalcoatlus had my cell phone, tv remotes and a tape dispenser holding down its spindly arms. Anything within 5 feet of you is best as 6 feet is too ambitious. Note: I would not recommend using an open top glass of apple juice.

3) Cut out whatever pieces need to be cut out, then lay them down where they need to be. Then pin them down to get ready to sew. Make sure you pin them down with the points facing toward the sewing machine so that when you are feeding the fabric you are also constantly stabbing yourself and catching your skin on the pins. Most people pin items perpendicular to the line that’s going to be sewn to avoid this, but that’s just not how I do things.

4) Cut off excess fabric, turn inside out and voila! You’re done! Ok, so Quetzalcoatlus’s head was only this simple (and even then not really). Its arms and body had wings that needed to be hand sewn into the body, blah blah. I even had to top stitch which I hate doing because I don’t like visible seams. I avoid hand sewing unless its absolutely necessary as I am really slow at it and have shaky hands, but it was not to be avoided this time.

Anyways, the end result is a Quetzalcoatlus with a 4 food wide wing span that took several more evenings of work than originally anticipated. At least it turned out as I had imagined!

(Source: paleogirlcrafts.etsy.com)

Eurypterids! In keychain form. I love making these as I get a chance to use some of the millions (not really millions) of scraps that I create while making bigger things. These are also some of the most simple items for me to make and therefore the least expensive items I have floating around in my Etsy shop. Some color combinations more than others appear to have Krusty the Clown hair. Maybe that’s just me, though. 

(Source: paleogirlcrafts.etsy.com)