Time to make more DIY handmade 'plushie' mascots out of socks! As volunteers prep up for
International Year of the Reef 2018 activities!
Being nature people, we are a little picky about making these animals somewhat anatomically correct. Here's more tips on how to make molluscs!
Molluscs include marine snails with shells. They are quite familiar as most people have seen land snails. One easy way to make plushie snails is with children's mittens of different colours. Unpick the wrist band for a longer base, insert oval cardboard to form the flat foot. Cut and swap out the tops for more colour.
Glue or sew on thick wool for shell spirals.
I tried my hand at a Spider conch made out of the heel of a colourful sock.
The
Spider conch has large eyes on stalks because this snail does not creep slowly along. It actually hops and needs to see where it is going.
Clams are also molluscs!
They are easy to make out of a pair of squares. Sew the base of each square, then trim to a shell shape. Stuff and sew the shapes together for a cute clam!
The file clam found on Singapore shores have tentacles peeking out between the shells. You can creat this by sewing some fluffy material along the edge of the shells.
Here's what a
file clam looks like.
The most amazing clam seen on Singapore shores are
Giant clams! They have wavy 'lips' and a tube (called the siphon) which they can use to squirt water.
It's easy to make a giant clam plushie!
Start with a headband or other cloth with ruffled edges. Cut into strips, sew together and add a siphon and fleshy parts between the shells in a different colour.
Octopuses are molluscs too! In Singapore, we have various kinds. The
Big head seagrass octopus is commonly seen on Changi. It has a big head with short arms.
The
Reef octopus is commonly seen on our reefs!
It is easy to make an octopus out of a sock. My bad stitching is less visible on fluffy socks.
You can use the toe of the sock as the head. You can also use the heel of the sock as the head. Cut the rest of the sock into 8 strips and sew the strips together into arms. Then stuff the head and sew the arms together to form the octopus.
Squids and cuttlefishes are also molluscs! Cuttlefishes have frilly 'wings' around the body edge. Squids have smaller wings at the end of the body which is more bullet shaped.
It's easy to make a plushie cuttlefish!
Start with a strip of frill-edged material and some scraps. Although real squids and cuttlefishes have many arms, for our mascots, four arms seems enough.
The cutest molluscs, however, are
sea slugs such as
nudibranchs. They are super easy and fun to make out of scraps and leftover materials.
Here's a box full of nudibranchs!
You can make 3 nudibranchs and 1 sea star out of a single glove!
Find out more about the
molluscs of Singapore on the
wild fact sheets of wildsingapore.
Did you make a mollusc plushie? I would love it if you could share a photo of it!
This article is written for Celebrating Singapore Shores as part of International Year of the Reef 2018.
