Soft Toy Creation for Beginners
A course by Maria Mandea , Play Designer
Design and sew your own playful textile characters using paper, thread, and your imagination
Design and sew your own playful textile characters using paper, thread, and your imagination
Maria Mandea has a mission: to create playful objects and characters that help play become a part of our everyday lives. From establishing her own brand, Micul HAOS, to her PhD education in play, Maria specializes in researching and designing how play occurs for all of us, regardless of age or place.
In this course, explore your imagination and learn how to create your own playful textile toy character. Using basic materials like paper, fabric, thread, and buttons, stimulate your creativity by developing a unique concept and turning it into an original character that can be easily shared with the online creative community.
What will you learn in this online course?
13 lessons & 21 downloads
- 97% positive reviews (241)
- 3,878 students
- 13 lessons (1h 55m)
- 21 additional resources (11 files)
- Online and at your own pace
- Available on the app
- Audio: English
- English · Spanish · Portuguese · German · French · Italian · Polish · Dutch
- Level: Beginner
- Unlimited access forever
What is this course's project?
Design and create your own unique soft toy character. Learn how to find inspiration and develop your concept before sewing, finishing, and sharing your final project.
Projects by course students
Who is this online course for?
This course is for anyone who has an interest in play—from absolute beginners who want to create their own toy, to professionals interested in unlocking new ideas for their characters.
Requirements and materials
No specific skills are needed to take this course, but previous sewing experience and a playful spirit are nice to have.
Necessary materials include colored paper, cotton fabrics, scissors, a pen or a pencil, a fabric marker, a needle and thread, and a sewing machine (optional, but recommended).
Reviews
A course by Maria Mandea
Maria Mandea specializes in researching and designing how play happens in our daily lives. She is the founder of Micul HAOS (“little chaos” in her native Romania), a brand focusing on creating playful objects and characters that help develop a culture where play can happen for everyone.
Maria is also the co-founder of Super Serios, a design studio that develops urban games and playful art installations across a range of different mediums, including toys, human-scale board games, and stop-motion animation. You can find out more about Maria’s projects on Instagram and her websites.
Content
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U1
Hello Hello!
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Presentation
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Influences
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What Will We Do in This Course?
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U2
Generating Ideas through Play
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Materials
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How to Create Your Sketch and Choose the Colours
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Creating Our Pattern
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U3
Let’s Do the Sewing
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Hand Sewing
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Going Faster with Our Sewing Machine
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U4
Adding Details
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The Head
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Assembling
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Plugging All the Pieces Together
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U5
Get Your Character Out into the World
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Creating a Simple Setup to Photograph
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Sharing the Character with the World
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FP
Final project
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Soft Toy Creation for Beginners
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What to expect from a Domestika course
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Learn at your own pace
Enjoy learning from home without a set schedule and with an easy-to-follow method. You set your own pace.
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Learn from the best professionals
Learn valuable methods and techniques explained by top experts in the creative sector.
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Meet expert teachers
Each expert teaches what they do best, with clear guidelines, true passion, and professional insight in every lesson.
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Certificates
PlusIf you're a Plus member, get a custom certificate signed by your teacher for every course. Share it on your portfolio, social media, or wherever you like.
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Get front-row seats
Videos of the highest quality, so you don't miss a single detail. With unlimited access, you can watch them as many times as you need to perfect your technique.
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Share knowledge and ideas
Ask questions, request feedback, or offer solutions. Share your learning experience with other students in the community who are as passionate about creativity as you are.
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Connect with a global creative community
The community is home to millions of people from around the world who are curious and passionate about exploring and expressing their creativity.
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Watch professionally produced courses
Domestika curates its teacher roster and produces every course in-house to ensure a high-quality online learning experience.
FAQs
Domestika's courses are online classes that provide you with the tools and skills you need to complete a specific project. Every step of the project combines video lessons with complementary instructional material, so you can learn by doing. Domestika's courses also allow you to share your own projects with the teacher and with other students, creating a dynamic course community.
All courses are 100% online, so once they're published, courses start and finish whenever you want. You set the pace of the class. You can go back to review what interests you most and skip what you already know, ask questions, answer questions, share your projects, and more.
The courses are divided into different units. Each one includes lessons, informational text, tasks, and practice exercises to help you carry out your project step by step, with additional complementary resources and downloads. You'll also have access to an exclusive forum where you can interact with the teacher and with other students, as well as share your work and your course project, creating a community around the course.
You can redeem the course you received by accessing the redeeming page and entering your gift code.
yklimyentyev
This instructor has inspired me to make some incredible and interesting work that my kids love. I absolutely smitten by this class. Loved every minute of it. The instructor is phenomenal. Love this class
calip_surfing_girl
La profesora explica super bien y hace parecer facil la creacion de personajes me dio hartos tips muchas gracias
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dino_miau
Além de criar, a professora nos faz refletir bastante! Aprendi muito assistindo as aulas e realizando o projeto.
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margaridafs7
Que magnífica forma de ensinar! Junta a prática e as soluções individuais com a técnica e os cuidados a ter. Excelente curso.
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mendes.ribeiro
Ótimo Curso!
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