How To Make Your Own Huffle Bumble Pygmy Puffs

The Huffle Bumble Pygmy Puffs started as a funny tongue twister I came up with late one night during Party Prep, but John & I quickly realized we had to make some for our Harry Potter Escape Room. We told our guests that some magical pets had accidentally locked themselves in the room, so it was up to them to solve the puzzles and free the pets.
 

We piled the Puffs in the final treasure chest, and let the teams adopt one as a reward. I really didn't think many people would want a Puff, but to my surprise they were a HUGE hit - to the point that I ran out! Ack!

So since I had to make another small batch anyway, I thought I'd show you guys how to make your own Pygmy Puffs.



Fun Fact: These guys have feet!

 
 I love having that little surprise when people pick them up. :)




I should mention that these particular Puffs took me FOREVER to make, but that's mostly because I used some really difficult materials, and because we needed nearly 20 of them. If you only want one or two they're actually a pretty simple DIY - and even easier if you don't add stripes!

So here, let me walk you through it. We'll start with the Puff part, since you can use furry puff balls for a lot more than just Pygmy Puffs - and they're surprisingly easy to make!

YOU WILL NEED:


For the body:
- Faux fur
- fiber fill
- fishing line
- (optional) thin feather boa for stripes

For the head & feet:
- Clay (air-dry or bake)
- small black beads for eyes
- craft paints (unless you use colored clay)
- hot glue or E-6000

1) Cut a circle out of your choice of fur:

I used 8 inch circles, traced from a mixing bowl.

Make sure you cut your circles fur side down, so your scissors only cut the back fabric. This keeps the fur shedding to a minimum.

I recommend a soft, mid-length fur, but the only yellow we could find was this super long, kinda scratchy stuff. Bleh. 

That meant I had to trim all our fur down - that's the "before" on the right. Trimming made it a little softer, and much easier to work with.

2) Thread a long needle with about 15 inches of fishing line. DO NOT USE THREAD. You need the strength and slipperiness of the plastic line to pull your Puff ball together.

I used this 4 pound monofilament line.

 3) Make a knot by crimping a tiny section of the fabric together, like this:

Now sew a big loose line around the circle, about a 1/4 of an inch down from the edge: 

Pull the line taut as you go, which will start to curl your fabric inward, like this:

4) When you're around the 3/4s point, stuff your Puff with a hand full of fiber fill:

 

Don't over stuff it; you only need enough to fill out the inside, no more.

5) Continue stitching the rest of the way around, then pull the line taut to close the hole. 

6) While keeping tension on the line to hold it closed, sew across the hole in several directions to cinch the whole thing shut.

This is a little tricky (I stabbed myself... many times), but in the end, the hole should disappear beneath the fur:

Finish by knotting off your line a few times, then trim the excess.

Ta-daaaa, you made a tribble! Or a puff ball.

Now let's turn it into a Pygmy Puff.

1) Sculpt a face from clay.

I modeled mine after a mouse face, and used Sculpey polymer clay, since we already had some. Obviously this does require some artistic flair, but not as much as you might think: Make a cone, push in two jewelry beads for eyes, add a little clay ball for the nose, cut a mouth with a craft blade, then curl two smashed circles for ears. It took me a few tries, but eventually I ended up with this.

Unless you're making a LOT of Puffs (say, more than ten?), it's easier and cheaper to just make separate clay faces. (Not to mention faster; if you use the right color clay, you won't have to paint or sand!) I made a mold of mine, though, because I've always wanted to try this. :D I used Amazing Mold Rubber, which is for pour-over molds. It isn't too expensive, and was very easy to use.

 Not gonna lie: I was SUPER stoked when this worked.

This is optional, but you can also make 4 clay feet to go with your face:

 Again, that's just a bunch of smashed balls of clay, so these are simple to make.

I baked everything before making the molds, then for the feet molds I used Amazing Mold Putty. That's the push-in stuff, and again, very easy to use.

For both the heads and feet we used casting resin from Reynolds Materials here in Orlando. Fun Fact for you locals: Reynolds usually has a booth at the bigger cons around here, where they give away FREE RESIN KITS. We always try to put our names in the daily drawings, and have won at least 3 kits that way!

My resin casts came out with various bumps and imperfections - an occupational hazard when working with resin, plus I'm still a newb at this - so I had to spend several extra hours sanding everything down.

 

 Then I had to wash and paint all the casts, which required many MORE hours of work:

 I actually like tedious crafts, but painting 80 of these feet - that's 240 tiny toes - pushed me to my limit. o.0

 

For the heads I used a darker shade of yellow inside the ears, mouth, and on the nose. Then I carefully painted the black eyes & added a gloss clear coat for a more life-like shine.

Again, this is all work you'll be avoiding if you're sticking with clay heads and feet versus making resin casts, so consider yourself duly warned: resin casting en masse is not for the faint of heart.

Now let's put it all together!

 This part is trickier than we expected, but John and I eventually got it down to a science. So please. LEARN FROM OUR FRUSTRATIONS. Here we go:

1) Put your Puff on a plate, hole side down, and smash it flat with your hand:

 You want a flat bottom for the feet.

2) Part the fur where you'd like the head to go:

... and glue the head in place:

 We just used hot glue, but you could also use E-6000.

3) Flip the Puff over, brush the fur out to the edges, and place the feet:

4) Once you're happy with the placement, glue the feet down, too.

Tadaa! A Pride of Puffs!

This final part is optional, but if you'd like to add feathery stripes like we did, you'll need a thin feather boa from the craft store. The boa is a HUGE pain to work with and VERY messy, but the black fur we tried instead was worse, so... ::helpless shrug::

5) Part the fur when you'd like the first stripe to sit. I recommend about an inch behind the head:

6) Starting at the side, hot glue the boa into that gap, pressing down as you go. Don't cut the boa until you reach the opposite side.

7) Repeat for the second stripe, which should be about an inch or two behind the first:

8) Finally, trim the excess wisps from the boa, so it looks less messy:

 Before

After

Again, I don't really recommend using the boa because it's messy and annoying to work with, but it DID give our Puffs a softer element, and it looks nice. If I had to do it again I'd experiment with a rolled tube of fur instead - or skip the stripes entirely, heh.



More pictures:



One more:

 Now, as a reward for making it this far, GUESS WHAT.

While all of those Puffs are spoken for, I had enough material to make one extra, sans stripes - and she wants to go home with one of you!

 

You can always add your own stripes, or leave her as-is and call her Sunshine. Or Lemon Drop. Or Lady Reginald Darcy Winthrop the Third.

 
Ok, maybe not that last one.

(She has feet just like the others. The only difference is I ran out of boa for her stripes. :D)

 If you'd like to adopt this pretty Puff, then leave me a comment and tell me her name. I'll pick the winner at random (or WILL I??) and announce it in my next post.

U.S. shipping only this time, please and sorry! 

UPDATE: The give-away has ended, and the winner is Jamie, who will be naming Puff "Lemon Drop!" Aw, so perfect. Congrats, Jamie, and please e-mail me your mailing address so we can ship Lemon Drop your way!

Sweet Stay Puft, this may be my longest tutorial ever, but I hope it made you smile, and inspires some crafty ideas out there! I'm already daydreaming about a whole shelf of Puffs in every color, mmmm.


*****

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