Celeste the Mouse

W. has been reading the book "A Nest for Celeste" and enjoying it, so we decided to get it for part of her friend's birthday gift. We thought it would be fun to make a Celeste of our own to go with the book. I had seen these darling take along friends as inspiration. We used an Altoids tin to hold Celeste and her treasures. In the book, Celeste the Mouse makes baskets, collects berries and finds feathers, so we added these things too. We had some blue jay feathers I could wash up and include. I crocheted a tiny basket and found some little "berries" in our Christmas and silk flower things. I made a little striped pillow, W. stuffed it, and we cut a little blanket out of an old pink turtleneck, using the sleeve hem as the blanket edging.

We tucked them all snugly into the tin and made a little pocket on a strap to carry it. In the book Celeste spends a lot of time in a pocket.

Celeste was made from brown fuzzy fabric, 2 oval black buttons, a tiny pink button, a men's dress shoe shoelace with brown thread eyelashes and whiskers.

I used the back of the shirt we took the pocket from and made a gift bag. I cut the whole back out in a rough square, then folded it in half with right sides together and the shirt hem at the top. I sewed the bottom and the one open side, turned it right side out and sewed a ribbon on near the top. We put the gift inside and tied it closed for a cute, coordinated gift.

A Nest For Celeste tells about a little mouse who lives in a house Mr. John J. Audubon visits. It is a beautifully illustrated, fairly well written story.