A Little Toy in Tin (Free!)

Some of you have probably seen the various little toys in tins/matchboxes circulating around these days. Last Fall, as I mentioned in this post, I purchased a bunch of DIY matchboxes and my oldest has been slowly filling them with little felt animals (mostly using patterns from Japanese craft books).

A few months back, we happened to stumble across these little felt hamsters in issue 5 of Mollie Makes. (As a side note, I love this magazine!). The templates are available FOR FREE here. My daughter is now making a collection of hamsters to fill a few more boxes...and some spare Altoids tins that we've been saving up.

I finished this little project during our Sunday Sister Sewing Sessions yesterday. I obviously moved the ears to the side a bit to make a bear, but we have made 4 or 5 hamsters from these templates. The bunny it's holding was made simply by adding ears to the pattern for the bow (see original template).

There are some incredibly cute tutorials for making little toys that fit in tins...but this pattern, besides being free, produces some awfully cute toys that fit perfectly in the tiny tins...

...which fit a lot better in little preschooler pockets.

The hamsters are so cute. This little grumpy guy is holding (and guarding) some gum balls. And has a few extra gum balls tucked away in its cheeks.