Christmas Holiday Wreath

I'm home for Christmas and working on my own crafty, but my mom wanted help with her own craft so I lent a hand.

It's pretty rad, made of ornaments and hymnal pages.  I got five sets of hymnals from a thrift store (for a total of a dollar!) and then she pilfered the Christmas songs out of them.  She did all the hard work making the little "cones", I just manned the hot glue gun.

So many songs!  Merry Christmas!

Ashlynn Needlefelt

I've had this craft finished for a while, but I kept forgetting to take pictures.

Needle felting is something I picked up a couple of summers ago because of... reasons.  I don't know, it sounded fun so I tried it out.  I actually started Ashlynn back in December of last year when I was teaching a friend how to needle felt, but I put the project down over break... and didn't pick it up until last October.  

She's made of wool that has been felted into shapes, with little bits of felt pieced on for accessories (i.e. the skirt, and suspenders)  I also had a little pair of glass eyes on wire, which I used for her... eyes.  he's got wires in her limbs to make her pose-able.  However she can't stand on her own.

I didn't manage to get a good shot of the star on her head, but that little white patch in her hair is a star clip.  Or something.  Hah, she wore white suspenders before I started doing it.

Bartholomew the Lion Amigurumi

 It has been quite a while since I've done any crochet/knitting.  I managed to hurt myself due to the INTENSE work I did this summer.  (The dangers of computers and crochet!) However, I had a half finished project that I finally got back to.

Bartholomew Cubinson!  I started him back in the summer but I had to stop crocheting for a while so it's only now that I got to finish him.  He's made from this pattern.

I love his toes.  His hair took the longest time to do and at some point I just gave up and sewed it to his head. To be honest I didn't quite understand the instructions.  It pretty cool though and fun to play with.  I like to tote him around by grabbing his head.

The pattern didn't come with a tail, so I just made one up.  On the spot.  It's just a pom pom and a chain, but it's cute so it works.  I guess.

Songbirds - Set 4

This is proabbly going to be the last set of Songbirds I do for a while.  They're just so simple to make that I do a whole bunch at once and then I get really bored and tired of them.  

Like my last batch of Songbirds, these were made to be sold at a benefit concert.

Checkered Songbird for Michael

Burnt Songbird

Azure Songbird

Forest Songbird

Songbirds - Set 3

Oho, more Songbirds.  Always Songbirds.

Most of these are going to be for sale at the same benefit concert as the owl stones.

Fire Songbird for Janelle

Sunny Songbird

Pink Songbird

Ghost Songbird.  This is my favorite of the batch and I'll be sad to see him go.

Painted Stone Owls - Set 1

My organization is putting on a little benefit show, and we needed things to sell, so I painted up these little rocks to look like owls. I found a picture of them somewhere, but it wasn't the original source, and I keep being led in circles while looking for it.

All the owls, all together.

This was probably one of my favorite rocks, but I'm quite partial to snowy owls.

I made two with this design because I wanted to keep one for myself.  I chose the littler guy since he was teh first rock I painted.

This guy's pretty cool, because purple is pretty cool.

I don't know what's up with this guy.  I just wanted to use green.

Big blue owl.

Little blue owl

Little gray owl.

This one looks like the pair of brown ones, but he's actually a foxy red.  He gave me a lot of trouble so I finally gave up and defaulted to blue markings since those worked so well.

Avery Painting

I've been doing a lot of painting lately.  I blame my friend Susanna.  This is a good thing.

For some reason I really wanted to work in yellows and oranges.  It is a rare occasion that I work with a color pallet such as this... and even rarer for me not to use blue.  I like how it turned out.  Yay.

Songbirds - Set 2

Here's another set of Songbirds.  I feel like I could continuously make these and still have a bunch of friends wanting one.

There's actually a fourth Songbird not pictured above because... it was windy and hard to get pictures.  My friend James took them and so they are super artistic and awesome.

Springtime Songbird for Kellsie.

Sky Songbird for Zac.

Spotted Songbird for Justin.

Oriole Songbird for Elyse.

Framed Earring Display

I have so many dangly earrings—I much prefer them to studs.  However, I ran out of room in my little earring box.  So I went hunting for ideas and found this.

I changed it a bit so that my wires had some slack to them, the earrings have a tendency to slide, but I like the look of it better.  Also, as a side note, I have a few more fish earrings than shown above.  I love my fish.

Mustache Pillow

I'm only going to post one more of the mustache items that I ended up making for Kait.  But it was the best thing ever, so. Yeah.  Mustache pillow!

It was exceptionally easy to make; I just drew up the pattern, cut it out of fleece, and sewed it together.  It's pretty much as simple as it gets.  It also looks fantastic.

Fingerstache Knits

So, for my friend Kait's birthday it was decided that mustache shenanigans were to be had.  One of my contributions was the knitted fingerstache!

Of course we have the classic handlebar mustache.  Probably the toughest part of this project is the color changes   It's not even worked in the round, and is a really simple/short project.  IT was worked on my size 3 needles.

There is also the Hitler-stache.  I had to.  (I so need a haircut)

Careful Hands Painting

I'm so bad at this whole remembering to update this blog thing.  It's not that I haven't been making art, it's just that I haven't been posting it.

My friend Rachel has a large wall covered in paintings at her house, but there are some spots with empty canvases.  So she asked me to paint on one of them.  Then... this... happened... it wasn't planned and I started off with blue, but somehow everything changed and I rather like it!

Chupacabra Sculptures

HAPPY CHUPACABRA DAY.

This is not a holiday that is entirely fictional and made up by myself and a few friends, it is incredibly important and many people have knowledge of this holiday and celebrate it every year on the 22nd of September.  In case you are wondering how you celebrate Chupacabra Day it is by being crafty and making chupacabras!  This year I decided to go with sculptures!

I've always designed my chupacabgras so be some kind of mixture between a coyote and a kangaroo.  There are various reasons.  They can have a variety of horn shapes and fur colors/patterns, and sometimes I'll give them wings or spines.  It depends on how I'm feeling.

Normally, though, I don't give them such long tails.  It was a necessity in order to get these chupas to stand.  I couldn't manage to balance them on just two legs.  I guess these are just a long-tailed variety of the chupacabra.

This guy gave me more trouble than the spotted chupa.  He wouldn't balance with a pipe cleaner tail so I had to add on a clay tail and cook him in the oven again.  However he fell over, so I had to redo it again. This time the tail broke off... in the end I just glued it on and hope for the best.

These guys are made from Sculpy on a tin-foil-and-floral-wire base.  They're painted with acrylics, and then a layer of varnish to make them look glossy.

Finn Amigurumi

School makes me bad at keeping up with my blog.  Anyway, here was the last project I completed during the summer.  Finn from Adventure Time! 

I remember the Adventure Time short from years ago, and it's been an actual cartoon for a year or two now, but I hadn't seen the cartoon until the end of summer.  I'm just completely enamored with it, and I have no idea why.  Of course, my first instinct was to crochet a Finn.  Unfortunately I could find no patterns.

So I made my own.  It was actually really easy since Finn's design lends itself really well to amigurumi.  Originally I had started off working in circles, but it didn't work.  At all.  So I restarted the project with ovals and it was a success.  His backpack is removable and his arms have a pipe cleaner core which makes them pose-able.  Crocheted with a G hook and Red ehart: Super Saver yarn.

I really enjoyed making Finn, so maybe in the future I might make some more of the Adventure Time crew.

Shrimp Amigurumi

At this point, I'm not even sure why I knit this.  Shrimp are just really cute, and this pattern was precious.

This was another quick knit, and again, really super easy.  For some reason I wanted to use safety eyes, even though there was not enough room for them. I really don't know.  The yarn is a mystery yarn, and the shrimp was knit on my size 7 DPNs.

As to the hook... I was watching too much Jeremy Wade and wishing I could go fishing.  I dunno' if the shrimpy would make good bait though....

Bird Amigurumi

I've made so many angry birds, I decided to make a less emotionally inclined avian...

After Hobbes I wanted to do a few quick knits, so I went through Ravelry and found this little pattern.  He's got a pretty lace thing going on with his tail, but you can't tell from the photos...  Knit with my size 7 needles with I Love This Yarn: Ombre.  It took me an hour or two to do, really fast and simple.  And not in the round.   Which makes it extra simple I guess.

Also, he fits perfectly in my hand.

Pear Amigurumi

I present: a pear among peers for a peer with peary fears.

I had to snap a few photos in the HEB and I bet someone was giving me odd looks while I did it... well, this is for my friend Kailey who harbors a mild distaste for pears.  He's so cute, how can she deny his love! I made him with Red Heart: Super Saver yarn on my size 7 DPNs from this pattern.  It was really simple and really fast!

Yes, I am really proud of the tongue twister up there...