Making new things is always an up and down process.

Sometimes, just thinking up a new idea takes ages in itself.

Often I have a number of things bubbling away on the back burner in my mind. In fact, if I don’t, I start to get a bit panicky and depressed.

However, taking these often daft notions and turning them into something tangible is another story.

Sometimes things work, sometimes they don’t.

My plushie mice started life as a bit of an afterthought, something to tuck into the pocket of my cat cushion. I didn’t think much about my first mouse’s design. I just wanted him to be simple, cute and suitably rodenty.

So I set about the task without a lot of the consideration normally involved. I didn’t even bother drawing a pattern.

And, as is often the case when you manage to successfully shed your creative inhibitions, I rather liked the slightly random results.So I made more…And as I was hand-stitching them I thought, hmmm… unstuffed, they look a bit like…. purses? phone cases?

As it turns out, both my niece and someone who spotted them on Facebook thought the same.

The thing is, making something that’s actually functional, as well as cute, takes a lot more planning than mouse number one did.

Getting the size right for one thing. What started out as a case for an iPhone 4, ended up only just fitting my iPhone 5. Although lad’s iPod Touch slots inside quite nicely.

So anyway, this, my prototype mouse phone cosy, still has a bit of a way to go before it works as well as I’d like it to.

I’ll carry on plotting and planning and trying things out and hopefully I’ll get there in the end.

But this particular mouse is destined for my pocket. ♥