DIY Stuffed Animal

To make a custom stuffed animal, you draw it from the front and the side, turn the drawing into flat pattern pieces, cut them from fleece, minky or faux fur, sew them inside out, turn the toy and stuff it with polyester fiberfill, then close the gap and add the face.

We’re SKAZKODROM, a soft toy studio. We’ve sewn more than 2,100 toys this way since 2009, every one of them made to order for one person. Below is the same process we use, step by step, with photos of real toys. If you’d rather have yours made, a plush from your drawing starts from $297, usually takes 2–4 weeks, and you see photos of it before it ships.

Not much, and most of it fits in a shoebox.

• Paper and card for the drawing and the pattern pieces
• Fabric: fleece is the easiest to start with; minky, short-pile plush and faux fur come next; felt for small details
• Polyester fiberfill for stuffing
• Thread that matches the fabric, plus embroidery floss for the face
• Safety eyes or floss for embroidered eyes
• Sharp scissors, pins or clips, a fabric marker and a chopstick for turning and stuffing
• A sewing machine helps, but a small toy can be sewn by hand with a backstitch

Draw the toy from the front and from the side. The side view is the one people skip, and it’s the one that tells you how deep the head is and where the legs sit.

Then make the drawing sewable. Fabric can’t hold a pencil-thin leg, a sharp spike or a tiny fold. Thicken the limbs, round off the points, and decide what will be stuffed, what will be flat, and what will be embroidered on top.

That’s what we do with every order. For our goose plush, the client only described what she wanted. We drew a sketch from her words (a flute under the wing, pearls with a cameo, a lace skirt), she approved it, and only then did anyone cut fabric. If you’re still deciding what your toy should be, our guide to designing your own stuffed animal covers the choices.

The goose plush sewn from one sketch: curly white plush, pearls with a cameo and a golden flute.

A pattern is the toy taken apart into flat pieces. Trace the outline of each part from your side view: body, head, ears, arms, legs, tail. A round body needs more than two flat pieces, so add a strip down the belly (a gusset) or small darts, the V-shaped tucks that pull flat fabric into a curve.

Mark which edges join, where the stuffing gap goes, and which pieces you need twice, mirrored. Then sew a quick test version from scrap fabric. Your first pattern will almost never be right, and that’s normal. When we copy a factory-made toy, we have sometimes sewn up to five versions before the shape matched.

For our Rathalos plush, the Monster Hunter wyvern, our artist first drew a simplified plush version: same crest, wings and spiked tail, rebuilt from shapes fabric can hold. The pattern came from that drawing, not from the game model. When a business needs a pattern a factory can repeat, we go further and add an assembly guide that even says how many grams of stuffing go in. See plush prototypes and patterns.

Our simplified Rathalos drawing, approved before the pattern was cut.

The finished Rathalos plush in red and cream fleece.

For a first toy, fleece. It barely frays, it forgives crooked seams, and it’s cheap. Minky is softer but stretchy and slippery, so pin it more. Stretchy fabric also puffs out when you stuff it, so the same pattern comes out rounder in minky than in cotton.

Faux fur has a direction (the pile). Lay every piece so the fur strokes the same way, usually down the back, and cut only the backing with small snips so you don’t shear the fur. Felt is good for noses, pads and eyelids because the edges stay clean without hemming.

Fabric changes the character more than people expect. Our teddy bear prototype was sewn twice from one watercolor sketch: once in fluffy faux fur, once in smooth short-pile plush. Same cap, same brows, and they look like two different bears. We use faux fur only, never natural fur.

The teddy bear sewn in fluffy faux fur.

The same bear from the same sketch, in short-pile plush.

1. Trace on the wrong side of the fabric. For left and right pieces, flip the pattern and trace again.
2. Add a seam allowance. Many toy patterns use ¼ inch (about 6 mm), like this bear pattern from fiberfill maker Fairfield. Write it on your pattern so you don’t forget.
3. Sew right sides together, with small stitches on curves. Leave a gap of a few centimeters on a straight edge for turning.
4. Put safety eyes in now, before the head is closed. Once it’s stuffed, you can’t reach the back.
5. Clip the curves close to the stitching without cutting it, so the seams lie smooth.
6. Turn it right side out and push the corners out with a chopstick.

Use small tufts of fiberfill, not big wads. Fill the far ends first (the nose, paws and ears), then the head, then the body. The neck needs to be firmer than you think, or the head will droop in a week.

If you want arms that hold a pose, put a wire inside before you stuff them. Our Gadget plush was photographed before her coveralls went on, so you can see the bare body: poseable arms, faux-fur hair and big cartoon eyes.

Close the gap by hand with a ladder stitch. It hides inside the seam, so nobody can tell where the opening was.

The Gadget plush before dressing: stuffed body, poseable arms, green cartoon eyes and faux-fur hair.

The face decides whether it looks like your character, so leave it for last and take your time. You have three main ways to do it:

• Embroidery: stitched eyes, mouth and brows. Flat and soft, with nothing to snag.
• Safety eyes: plastic eyes with a locking washer inside. They give a shiny look but must go in before stuffing.
• Paint, felt or polymer clay for fangs, claws, glowing eyes and fine lines.

Our Raziel plush uses several of these at once: fleece skin, sewn fangs and a black cowl with its gold pattern painted on by hand.

Raziel’s face: blue fleece, pale eyes, white fangs and a hand-painted gold pattern on the cowl.

At home, a simple toy from a ready pattern can be done in an evening or two. A toy you design yourself takes longer, mostly because the pattern needs one or two test versions.

At SKAZKODROM, making a custom stuffed animal usually takes 2–4 weeks. That covers the drawing and your approval, the pattern, the sewing and the face, then photos for you to check. Delivery usually takes another 7–20 business days, longer around holidays, and regular post typically costs $50–60.

Send us whatever you have: a drawing on paper, a photo, a screenshot, or a few sentences about the idea. Add the size you want and the date you need it by. That’s enough for a free quote.

1. We send a price and a time estimate.
2. If your picture needs simplifying for fabric, our artist draws a plush version first, and you approve it before anything is cut. No picture at all? A plush-ready drawing of your idea starts from $150.
3. We build the pattern from scratch and sew the toy by hand.
4. You get photos of the finished toy. If something looks off, we change it before it ships.
5. On a personal order, if you don’t love it, tell us within 14 days of delivery and you get a full refund. See our guarantee.

A plush from your drawing starts from $297, and most custom toys start from $350. Each toy is priced by its size and detail; what a custom plush costs explains why. Browse plush we’ve sewn from drawings, like this teddy bear from a sketch. For Christmas, order by November 1.

“I wrote an email with all the details for the toy I wanted made and attached a colored image from one of the books, so that the toy would look just like the character I wanted it to be based on. The order was taken right away.”

Ruslan, about the Findus cat he ordered for his daughter’s birthday. Read his review

“Lou” is a character that I created. Skazkodrom constructed him based on one of my drawings. I could not be more pleased with the result.

Magge, an illustrator in Italy, about her dog character Lou. Read her review

Send it with the size you have in mind. We’ll reply with a price and a time estimate. Usually 2–4 weeks to make, photos before it ships.

Custom toys start from $350.
A bigger size or extra details can cost more.