Tutorial: Turning a Care Bear Into a Backpack~!

Hello everyone! In my last thrift store haul post, I showed you all a big Wish Bear that I got! A day or so after having it sit on my bed with the rest of my stuffed animals, I realized that it was the perfect size to turn into a backpack! I have a tutorial of exactly how to do that here for you~

Here are the supplies~

☆ A Large Care Bear (or any stuffed animal~)

☆ Fabric (for the inside of the bag and straps)

☆ Scissors

☆ Needle & Thread (There's a lot of hand sewing ;^;)

☆ Zipper (so the bag can close)

And some things I forgot to show here are~

☆ Pins

☆ Iron

Now that all of the supplies are gathered, lets begin!

First, use the zipper to approximate where you'll cut the openging and mark it with pins, or draw a dashed line with a fabric market or pen or something like that.

Now it's time to cut that opening, and take out a bit of the stuffing. If you don't remove the stuffing, then nothing will be able to fit in your bag! Be careful to remember this step.

Next, cut a square or rectangle of fabric. This is going to be the "bag" part. Make sure it's wide enough to fit into the opening that you cut before you sew up 3 of the sides.

Note: When you sew this, make sure that the right sides of the fabric are facing each other!

After you have that done, stuff the pouch of fabric inside of the opening in the bear.

Then pin the edges in place.

Now comes the time-consuming part! You should probably switch a movie on or something, because you'll be sewing by hand for a while ;~; (can you tell I really hate sewing by hand? xD?)

Sew the pouch into the opening

And then pin and sew the zipper into the opening (this by hand too ;~;)

Make sure the zipper can close. Now you're almost done! Next you just have to make and attach the straps. Also the hand sewing ends here for a while ;u;!

Cut two long strips of fabric, fold them in half (wrong side of fabric showing) and sew the edges together. Then turn them inside out (this takes a good while too ;~;) and iron them to get this~

Pin the straps on, and try the backpack on to see how it sits on you. Make any adjustments and as soon as you're satisfied sew them on.

had to hand sew this as well ;^; I think I'll go back and super glue the straps in place, I don't trust the way I sewed it xD.

But now it's done! Here are some more pictures~

This is what it looks like open ;u;

And there it is worn!

I made the pouch deep enough to hold a lot of items. I can fit my phone, iPod, wallet, mirror, notepad, pencil, and nail file in with quite a bit of room left! Though the hand sewing was tedious ( I'm sure it's obvious how much I dislike it by now xD!) and the actual opening looks ~odd~, It definitely works as a super cute backpack! I can't wait to wear it around ;u;.

What do you guys think? Will you be turning your stuffed animals into all sorts of bags? I would love to see if you do!

Thanks for looking~!