Tiffany Holloway’s son Jonas is obsessed with everything ocean-related, so she said she wasn’t surprised when he asked for a plush Manta Ray for his 5th birthday.
Holloway soon realized she had a problem. She looked online to buy one of the stuffed sea creatures, then checked her savings account balance.
“I saw that I had only $2,” she said. “There was no way I could afford even the cheapest Manta Ray that I saw for $20.”
“I sat on the couch until 1 in the morning, poking myself with that needle until I’d finally finished sewing it together,” said Holloway, 33. “I took two buttons off one of my blouses and used those for eyes.”
She felt so proud of her thrifty creation that she took to social media Aug. 2 to post a photo on Reddit’s poverty/finance page, which she follows for money-saving tips.
“My son wanted a stuffed manta ray for his 5th birthday but I didn’t have money to buy one, so instead I converted his old baby blanket into one!” she wrote.
“I figured I’d be lucky to hear from a couple of people,” said Holloway. “I thought I might get teased because the button eyes aren’t on straight.”
More than 66,000 people had liked the photo of the homemade manta ray she’d named Roger after a favorite childhood doll, Roger Rabbit.
“This is so much better and more special than a store-bought manta ray could ever be,” one person commented.
Dozens of people asked if they could mail her son additional stuffed manta rays for his birthday, said Holloway. She accepted, and within days, dozens of packages started to arrive at her home.
On his big day, she gave him a birthday cake made of pancakes — and the manta ray she’d sewed.
It was his favorite of them all.
- The Washington Post
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