I've been spending a lot of time lately playing Minions Paradise, so when I saw a cute felt Mr. Potato Head game online, I immediately thought of making a minion version.

This was a really fun project to work on and is a perfect rainy day craft activity.

Safety Warning:

This game has small detachable pieces that could be a chocking hazard. If you are making this for a child who might be tempted to eat the pieces, omit the changeable mouths and other tiny parts.

Step 1: Materials and Tools

For this project, you'll need:

Felt in yellow, blue, white, red, grey, green and brown
Embroidery floss or thread in several colours to match the felt
Bits of ribbon and lace (optional)
Velcro (optional)
Fabric glue (optional)
Needles
Laser cutter, cutting machine (Silhouette, Circut or similar) or sharp scissors and lots of patience

Step 2: Design

I found a birthday invitation minion svg file by Grealish Greatings and used that as the basis for designing my felt pieces.

I used Corel Draw to draw all the pieces I wanted and lay them out by colour.

There are so many options for minion outfits, but I went with iconic pieces from the first two Despicable Me movies.

Minion Dress Up Page.cdr
Download

Step 3: Cut Felt Pieces

I used a laser cutter to cut out the felt pieces. You could also use a cutting machine like a Silhouette or Cricut with a fabric blade, or you could cut everything out by hand.

The laser is awesome for cutting polyester felt and it made this step very quick and easy.

First I etched a template onto some scrap cardboard so I I would know where to position the different coloured felt pieces. Next, I laid out the felt and cut the pieces.

Before cutting all your pieces, you'll want to experiment to get the settings right. I found that my different pieces of felt required different cut settings as some melted easier than others.

Most of the detachable pieces will need to be cut twice so there is a front and back piece.

Step 4: Sew and Embellish

This is the fun part!

Now that you have your pieces you can embellish them with embroidery, beading or any other details you want.

I used a variety of different stitches including a running stitch, double running stitch, whip stitch and lazy daisy stitch.

Details

To make the grass skirt, I cut short pieces of green ribbon and sewed them to the felt waist band. I then folded them over and secured them with a whip stitch.

For the fire alarm head gear I added small grey beads to represent the screws or rivets.

I added small bits of lace to the French maid dress and hat, and used a lazy daisy stitch to embroider the bow.

For the fruit headdress I used Fabric-Tac fabric glue to hold all the tiny grapes and berries in place .

Velcro

Felt pieces will naturally stick together, so you don't really need to add velcro.

I used velcro because I think it will help prevent the pieces from getting lost. The soft loop side of the velcro was used on the minion body and the sticky hook side was put on the detachable pieces. Eventually I'd like to make a felt closet to store all of the minion's pieces on velcro.

I couldn't find yellow velcro, so I cut black velcro to look like hair and a mouth and used white velcro lower on the body.

Putting it together

Sew the minion body, shoes and gloves to a background piece of felt.

Once your pieces are decorated and have velcro, sew their edges together with a quick whip stitch.

You're done!