GUILDERLAND — Their art project culminated at Albany Medical Center.

Over the course of a year, Sheila Elario’s art students, most of them in ninth grade at Guilderland High School, saw their designs go from concept to drawing and then into a computer where students edited and colored them.

From there, students used their designs as the prototype for a ceramic sculpture that they were graded on and got to keep.

Elario wanted them to see how the same design could be pushed in different directions.

So the drawings were sent to a company in Florida called Budsies, which manufactured a plush animal 16 to 18 inches in height for each design.

The company, Elario said, makes the animals slightly flattened, to facilitate hugging.

The animals needed to be kept tightly sealed in the plastic bags they came in, Elario said, so that they could be donated.

The cost of making them? Students raised it, in collaboration with the Parent Teacher Association and the Key Club, Elario said.

Near year’s end, Elario said, students brought the stuffed animals — most of them friendly monsters — to Albany Medical Center, to donate them to the Bernard and Millie Duker Children’s Hospital, which provides comprehensive pediatric care.

“This project was designed to push one idea, so students would have a real-world experience of taking a creative concept to a final product,” Elario said. “It also allowed them to work with the community, to experience giving back.”