Lion Skin Rugs

Teddy had two lion skin rugs (female lions? mountain lions?) in the library.  While I would never have animal skin rugs in real life, the imitations are important to this build, and I swear that no actual lions were hurt in the creation of my rugs.  I was lucky to find some lion-head beads on Etsy that were pretty close to the right size.  I puttied in the holes and painted them, using photographs of mountain lions found online.  (I love the little jewels in the eyes.  In real life, they really sparkle!)

I then snipped some embroidery floss into very fine flock (almost powder) and glued a thin layer onto the bead using tacky glue.  The body is made from microfiber “suede.”  The wonderful thing about half scale is that most projects can be completed using swatches!  I easily got two lion bodies out of one 8” x 8” swatch, even though part of the swatch had been rendered unusable by a sticker.  I’m not sure the proportions are quite right, but the body was as big as I dared go in half scale, and I could not pass up beads this perfect.

I made a cut-out of thin chip board just slightly smaller than the back of the bead, glued the suede around it, then glued it to the back of the bead and added a little more flocking over the seam.  I also slightly padded the front paws and added false eyelashes as claws.  The markings were made by grating a brown pastel and brushing it on like eye shadow.  On my first try (left-hand lion), I used flock for the markings on the head, but thought it turned out too dark.  For the second lion (right-hand lion), I used the pastel on the head as well as the body, and I think it looks much better. 

Right now, they’re lying on drink coasters, which are a little thick.  I’ll be cross-stitching my own rugs for the library.