Making a Stuffie

Recently I tried making a stuffie (stuffed animal or whatever) for a Craftster swap.  In the past I've made very simple ones that I was happy with, but I felt that I needed to try harder this time, since I would be sending my creation to someone!  When I looked at my partner's profile, I saw that she had participated in a previous stuffie swap, and for that partner she had made a fabulous jointed dinosaur!!  I didn't want to disappoint her, so I really put some time into creating the cutest little monkey possible (she LOVES monkeys), and this is what I came up with:

I loved her so much, I made one for myself, too!  She is made of fleece, with wool felt for the face, flower, and heart.  I beaded the heart, added a button to the center of the flower, and put wire in the tail to make it poseable. 

As I was working on the pattern, I kept making adjustments, because I realized that the secret of cuteness is this:  big head, small body!  I probably could have gone smaller with the body, but it was hard enough to sew as it was, because the size from rump to flower is only 5".

Here they are, two little monkeys, before one flew away to live in Mexico!  My partner received her recently, and she loves her! (I was sure she would!)