Ever wondered what your colourful, charmingly bizarre childhood drawings would look like in real life? You know, those big-handed, stick-legged humans, those purple giraffes or those googly-eyed monsters you probably drew as a little kid?
Ikea has taken 10 children's drawings off the page and transformed them into cuddly plush toys that it will add to its catalogue, as part of an annual campaign to raise money for kids' education. All 10 toys were designed by children from different parts of the world, and selected through a contest at Ikea stores. Ikea will donate $1 for each soft toy sold to children's education projects, as part of its partnership with UNICEF and Save the Children. Donations will also be made for each children's book sold during the campaign, which runs from Nov. 9 to Jan. 3.
The winning drawing-to-plushy creatures include a green dinosaur with a cowboy hat, a six-armed monster with googly eye-stalks, a giant-eared monkey-thing with a striped shirt and a black-and-white skunk with an unimpressed expression on its face.
A skunk toy is shown with the drawing that inspired it for a line of Ikea soft toys. (Ikea)
A dinosaur drawing is shown alongside the toy that it inspired. (Ikea)
A video about the fundraising campaign shows Olivia, the U.K. girl who designed the skunk, talking about her inspiration for her drawing. "I chose a skunk because that's the first thing that came up in my mind," she says in the video.
Bodil Fritjofsson, the product developer on the project, said Ikea received "thousands" of submissions from children at stores all around the world. "The response has been amazing," she says in the video. "It was really hard to choose from all these fantastic designs."
Fritjofsson and her staff tried to select the designs they felt children would most want to cuddle up with.
The toys are designed by children from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Spain, Norway, Belgium, Cyprus, Romania, Taiwan, Malaysia and Croatia.
The Ikea Foundation has offered new soft toys each year for its fundraising campaign, but this is the first time the toys have been designed by children.
The contest is being re-opened for a second year at Ikea stores this winter, so children can submit their designs for next year's line of soft toys.
