How To Make Old Stuffed Animals Look New Again
Like near children, Tina Rhodes cherished blimp animals when she was little.
"I grew upwards with asthma, and then for a few years every bit a kid I was in and out of the hospital," the 29-twelvemonth-one-time from Virginia Beach told TODAY Parents. "I e'er brought my bunny Michelle, fifty-fifty though the doctors called her a dust sponge. My mom would go to bat and firmly defend me to have my bunny."
During a trip to Walgreens equally a kid, Rhodes picked out a blimp conduct for her mom, Susan, as a gift for Valentine's Day. Through the years, the beloved blimp animal, dubbed 'Babe Acquit,' had become tattered and marred past a large hole.
Susan had planned to throw it away, just Rhodes promised she could fix the well-loved stuffie.
Tragically, Rhodes' mom passed away in March 2020 afterward a long battle with lymphoma earlier the bear-mending project came to exist.
Equally the earth shut down in 2020, and so did Rhodes.
"For a couple months I didn't do anything," she shared. "I was furloughed from work. I was at home playing Animal Crossing to cope and grieve."
Later on getting lost watching TikTok one twenty-four hour period, Rhodes committed to doing creative projects and recording them to the video sharing platform to pull herself out of her grief-induced funk. Prior to the pandemic, she had spent her complimentary time making costumes and attending comic conventions, and so sewing was a familiar outlet.
"Baby Comport was my first project," Rhodes told TODAY, adding that she described her project to her hairstylist, who immediately asked to have a blimp brute from childhood restored.
Rhodes never expected her grief journey would become a TikTok sensation.
"As I was doing it, I made a fiddling TikTok nearly it," she said. "And that was my very showtime viral video."
She began getting 1 or two commissions a month from across the country.
"I felt like a stuffed animal foster mom," Rhodes said. "I got to clean them, dearest on them and send them back to their forever homes."
In October 2020, Rhodes spent ii days responding to a couple dozen email inquiries.
"My husband Keith said, 'What are y'all going to do when y'all have 100 emails?'" Rhodes recalled. "I just said, 'Oh, that'south non going to happen.'"
The seamstress is now eating her words. Rhodes' waitlist stretches beyond 2022.
"I did the math (and) I could be working on stuffies for the next sixty years and not brand information technology through my queue," she shared, adding that the concept has grown into something then much more than playing around on TikTok. "I'm and then thankful, because restoring these blimp animals helps me restore myself and come back to myself from grieving and going through 2020."
Rhodes said she treats each stuffed creature with an individualized care plan.
"The basic procedure is to receive each ane in the postal service and really break down the care plan for them once I run across them in person," she said. "I email their person and let them know they're hither condom, and so I unstuff them to deep make clean them. The cleaning procedure is multiple soaks with a gentle solution and once they're make clean and dry, I can do repairs."
Mutual repairs include replacing eyes, repairing noses, patching baldheaded spots on fur, fixing holes and tracking down missing accessories.
The finished touch is to give them new life.
"I always take a picayune bit of their stuffing to put in a eye to go along all their memories and magic in them," Rhodes said.
The fun quarantine hobby is now turning into a business venture. Rhodes is working on branding and has plans to build a website.
"I've dubbed it the 'Stuffie Spa,'" she said, adding that her current social media handle, 'Viva Valentina,' was her online alias for cosplay. "I've been creating under this alias and I'thousand like, I really need to name the stuffie spa. Viva Valentina ever meant to live for what you love and what you do, so information technology very much embodies my values and core beliefs, so I'm not changing my name after all of this."
In an effort to continue up, Rhodes recently hired her best friend from fifth grade to help manage emails.
She added, "And I have friends who are stuffed beast enthusiasts who are going to work with me in the Stuffie Spa to assistance more people."
Ultimately, helping people is Rhodes' goal.
"It's then amazing to encounter the community (that has formed), because nosotros are all looking for comfort," she said. "They're such simple things — the lovies — but, no matter how one-time you are, they volition still e'er bring you lot condolement. I always say I perform magic, simply non miracles. I can never brand them new-new, but I can become them as close as possible."
Related:
Source: https://www.today.com/parents/woman-gives-new-life-old-stuffed-animals-viral-videos-t213697
Posted by: clarkeblamot.blogspot.com
0 Response to "How To Make Old Stuffed Animals Look New Again"
Post a Comment