Stuffed Animal Backpack

On a whim, I decided to be crafty and make a stuffed animal backpack! Inspired by the craftgrrl LiveJournal community, I chose a stuffed animal and was on my way.

The Balto plush to the left was sent to me by Pac for some other craftyproject, but I decided to use it for this one, since it was large enough, and I had no qualms about tearing its lil' stuffings out.

The first step to my new pack was to tear the back seam to make room for a zipper. I used a regular box cutter razor blade, and carefully cut the threads and opened the back seam. (if you're trying this at home, your stuffed animal may not have a back seam like mine, feel free to make the cut for the zipper anywhere you like.) My zipper was from an ex-boyfriend's pair of old bondage pants (that he decided he didn't want to be "bondage pants" anymore, so he removed all the zippers, and I got one), luckily, it was longer than I needed, so I could cut the size of the hole as big as I wanted, and I could still cut the zipper down to make it fit.

After I was satisfied with how large I had made the hole in its back, I decided it was time to remove the stuffing. I removed a little over half of the stuffing, I left some in its head and its legs, and a little in its chest, so it would still keep its shape:

The de-stuffed Balto.

Next, I created a little pouch out of black velvet (you can use any kind of fabric you like, or happen to have laying around). I kind of eyeballed how big I wanted it, and the shape that it'd be to fit well inside the stuffed animal's body cavity. This isn't something you have a pattern for, just eyeball it, cut out a blob-shaped (or a made-up internal organ-shaped!) piece of fabric, and sew the pieces together. If you're nitpicky, make sure your wallet and keys fit inside, or whatever you plan on stuffing into that poor animal once you complete this project.

Now find an old backpack, you'll be removing the straps from it (or if you cant find one, you can take this time to make your own straps). Ozzy helped me pick out mine, he says it makes a good puppy-sized pillow. He's a good helper. The bag we found had a broken zipper, and it could've been easily repaired, but I decided I wanted a stuffed animal backpack more. Ozzy agreed with me, so I robbed its straps from it. I carefully cut the seams around the straps, so the extra material holding on the straps, would also be used to help hold on the straps in my stuffed animal backpack.

And I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the straps being sewn on, but I'll try to explain it the best I can: Put them on any way you can (your method will probably be just as good if the final product is strap-like protrusions, which stay attached). The way I did it was I cut 4 slits, and put each respective end of the strap through, I folded it over on the inside and sandwiched it all together, and sewed it 3 or 4 times, to make sure it was sturdy, checking to make sure I went through all 3 layers (the top layer of fur, the backpack strap, and the bottom layer of fur). At this point it kind of helps to have made a hole large enough to be able to turn that part's insides out, or the whole animal inside out, if necessary.

To the left is the animal with the straps attached, and the pouch/zipper partially sewn on. Its now time to explain how to attach the inside pouch and the zipper. This was the most complicated part for me, and I did one side at a time to make sure the zipper was lined up properly. Bear with me as I try to explain this in a way that would make sense to other people: Take the zipper and put it inside the pouch, sandwich the pouch between the zipper and the fake fur of the stuffed animal. Sew them all together at once. This makes it so its the fur of the animal, a little line of the inside liner showing on the outside, and the zipper, with no visible outside seam. For the other side you might not be able to do the exact same thing with a sewing machine, unless you leave a big gaping hole so you can turn the animal inside out. I just hand-sewn the right side of my pouch and zipper on. If you can't fit a sewing machine, or can't figure out how to do it with the machine, go ahead and hand-sew it. Just make tight stitches, and go over it a few times to make sure its sturdy.

Now, for finishing touches. There was about an inch of opened seam above and below my pouch and zipper. Plus, my zipper was still a bit too long. I first cut off the end of my zipper, and hot-glued the teeth on both sides as a stopper, so it didn't come apart. I tucked that in the open part of the seam. Then, I hand-sewn the top and bottom of the seams closed, close around the zipper so it looked nice. At this point you can add little tabs to help open or close your zipper, it does help and makes it a bit quicker to grab on the tab, and zip it right closed, though I chose not to include them in my animal backpack this time.

The finished bag.

So now we're done, right? Right! Now go show it off to all your friends!