I've made a couple and they turned out great. On the back I appliqued animals on them so that the baby could lay on that side when it was little. Make sure you wash them before giving them as a gift. There isn't too much freying after that and I've never seen any to have strings hanging from them for them to be caught up in. I'm not sure how those are being made. You can either put batting, a extra layer of flannel or nothing at all in them.