Five Baby Animals

A year ago, I started these cute little baby animals with big feet and a tiny body. I had great plans for them. Then something happened -life most likely- and I never typed up the pattern or finished the other little critters that I had planned to make. So after we moved and I found the little guys and some hubby added some encouragement, I finally got back to it. It's sad that it was so closed to being finished for so long. Now I can finally present my little baby animals.

I think the turtle is my favorite.

A little kitty.

An elephant.

A little bunny.

I also love the mouse.

The pattern for these little guys is now available to purchase at Em’s Emporium at etsy.com!

Two Little Whales

Free pattern from BitterSweet.

I changed the tale a little bit. I did a sc and then folded it flat and did sc (plus one 2sc so that it equaled 6sc) across -going through both sides- to close it up. Then I followed the rest of the directions until the last and added a few dc to the first part of the tail.

Is Halloween here yet?

Yep, more Halloween decorations. Apparently, making one just opens the door by setting the dangerous precedent. Or maybe it's just that it gives a little five year old reason to hope (and to whine) for more Halloween items made mostly for him.

Presenting Pipsqueak the Bat.

My son named him. He was thrilled when he came home from school to find it finished. After telling me what a wonderful mom I was and how he loved and adored me (OK, maybe that's a stretch and he really just said "Thank you."), he asked me to make him more.

I'm thinking of making a few more. I think they'd be cute magnets and I'd like to have a group of them hanging together near a doorway. Good thing they're easy to make, although the wings were a pain to make. I redid them several times. I think I finally settled on the fifth version. Who knew that wings could be so difficult?

Is it time to decorate for Halloween yet?

I love decorating for holidays (It's the undecorating that I hate.) and I find it difficult to wait until the appropriate month. It's gets worse when the stores start selling Halloween decorations in August and Christmas decorations shortly after that. Hobby Lobby is near torture to go into since they have Christmas decorations out in July. Hubby claims they sell them year round.

My son is even worse than I am. Of course, he just loves Halloween in general. Spooky decorations, playing dress up, and getting candy. What wouldn't a five year old like about that? He's already decided to go as a skeleton this year. He's really hoping for a glow-in-the-dark skeleton.

So walking through the stores with my son is fun this time of year. He wants to look at all the Halloween decorations and bring home all the spooky ones. Luckily he hasn't gotten into the gory ones -probably because I try to steer him away from those ones. At Costco a week ago we saw this giant spider decoration. He had to have it. Unfortunately what a five year old deems a necessity is often very different from what his mom considers necessary. So we didn't get the spider or the really cool $80 inflatable graveyard that would look great in the yard that we don't have. He was disappointed until I suggested making our own spider similar to the one that we had seen in the Oriental Trading ad.

Aside from a few little tantrums (mostly my 2 year old that wasn't allowed to paint with us), it was really easy to make. First we gathered our materials.

2 large black trash bags
red paper (or you can paint white paper like we did)
scissors
clear packaging tape
something to stuff it with (empty plastic bags or newspaper)

Stuff one trash bag until it's full enough to hold its shape -a little squishy is fine. Next, tie the bag closed. I taped down the two bottom corners of the bag after stuffing to make it more rounded. Then tie some string around it about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the bag to form the head.

To make the legs, lay the second trash bag out flat and cut it length-wise into 8 pieces. Do not cut the bottom seam of the bag or you'll end up with short legs. The bottom seam will be the halfway point on the legs and a great place from which to suspend the legs when you're done. Tape the legs to the bottom of the spider with 4 on each side.

Cut circles from the red paper. I traced around a wide plastic cup for mine. Tape eyes to the spider's face.

I'm not sure how well the spider would hang since I just put him on a high shelf and then attached the midpoint of the legs to the wall nearby.

My son and I love how he turned out. My husband is just glad that we put it up in the kids' room for now. Next on my list of homemade Halloween decorations is furry spiders and little bats.
And possibly a glow-in-the-dark skeleton costume.

Baby Polar Bear

This weekend I watched Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus -repeatedly. This is because I have a 2 1/2 year old daughter that has recently discovered "princess" stuff. My sister once theorized that if you want to market something to young girls, all you need to do are put the right words on the packaging. Beautiful, fairy, and princess. This became the source of inspiration for many inside jokes and birthday cards.

So what does this have to do with the baby polar bear? Obviously you haven't seen Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus over and over like I have. Early in the movie Anika (aka Barbie) adopts an orphaned polar bear cub and names her Shiver because the bear cub is cold and shivering. Shiver is not only Anika's cute little sidekick throughout the movie, but she also causes a fair amount of problems for Anika. But that's alright because she's cute.

So after seeing hours and hours of Shiver frolicking around on screen, I made my own little polar bear cub.

Before you ask, I'm not going to sell this pattern. Instead you have to "pay it forward." I will send you the pattern for free, but you have to promise to do something kind for someone else in return. If you'd like to participate, email me at eebrs(at)yahoo(dot)com. Make sure you put "Polar Bear Pattern Request" (or something similar) in the subject line.

The pdf is also available for download from Ravelry.com! Hopefully the link works. Let me know if it doesn't.

download now

I would love to keep a running list of the service that has been rendered to others as part of the "pay it forward." I'll only list the service you rendered, not your name. If you would like your deed added to the list, let me know.

Pay it Forward Services Rendered:

• Toys donated to Kristie's Kids Toy Drive benefiting the University of Minnesota Fairview Childrens Hospital.
• Donated 15 balls of crochet thread to a local charity quilt club.
• A daughter's promise to treat her mother with respect and help out more at home.
• Making a polar bear for Granmar sick with cancer.
• Donating old toys to a charity shop.
• Making something nice for another person.
• Making and donating "snugglies" for local animal shelters -along with toys and food.
• Making hats for Inocent Smoothies which in turn donates 50p to keeping the elderly warm.
• Donating toys to the local fire and police departments.
• Making the bear as a gift for a friend in need.
• Brightening the day of a sick little girl.
• Donating to the local children's hospital.
• Donating to the local Firemen's Toy Drive.

Marionettes

This was one of those projects that take forever to finish, but not because they are difficult or time consuming. I just kept putting it off and working on other things. When I finally buckled down and finished the first, I loved it and the second one (the flamingo) came together a much more quickly.

This one is kind of an ostrich inspired bird. After all, what other bird has a long neck and long legs?

Actually a flamingo fits that description, but on a smaller scale. This one was actually my husband's idea. I was looking for something to do with some pink yarn and Hubby kept suggesting a flamingo.

While they do function like actual marionettes, my kids don't quite have the skills for that. Instead they make the birds jump and dance with a lot of shaking and wiggling.

Toy Drive

It's that time of year. The third annual Toy Drive is going on right now. You can read Kristie's blog for more information or read the post on Crochetville. All toys are being donated to the University of Minnesota Fairview Childrens Hospital and will be delivered on August 12. If you miss that date, Kristie will be there later in the month and can take any late arrivals then.

Here's my donation. There are a couple of items that aren't visible.

Now I just need to get to the post office. This is one of those times when a second car would come in handy.

Arrg!

Recently I was talking to my five year old about jobs and how when we grow up we get to decide what kind of job we want. Before I had finished, he had already decided what he wanted to be -a pirate. He wants to be a pirate because pirates find treasure. He then proceeded to tell me about all the things he needed so that he could be a pirate. My favorite was that he needed a "talking bird." So like any good crafty parent, I enabled his current obsession.

Here's Squawky, our piratey version of Chaco the Parrot Puppet. It's not the best picture. He's really cuter than that. I had to alter the pattern so that I could fit my hand inside and because my son wanted green on the end of the parrot's tail. I also added a row of sc to the parrot's beak to even out the edge.

We also made a pirate hat and eye patch out of two sheets of black foam. The stencil is one that I got on clearance from Michaels.

I guess the next step is a treasure hunt. A year ago, I made a treasure hunt using laminated cards so that I could reuse it later. I drew pictures of each room on a card and colored a big red 'X' on the back. He starts with one card that shows him which room to look in for his next clue. The cards send him from room to room until he finds the last card which only has a red 'X' to show that he's found the treasure -candy or chocolate chips inside a shiny gold box. He's getting pretty good at it. I have to hide them really well or he can run through it in less time than it took me to set it up. Any parent can tell you the value of a happy child spending a long time in search of a carefully hidden item (and more importantly leaving Mom/Dad alone) -priceless.

More Monkey Fun

I have wanted to make a regular body for some of the slinky animals, but just haven't gotten around to it until now. Here's the first conversion -a little monkey. I think he needs bigger eyes though. He has pipe cleaners in his arms so he's poseable. He's now in my etsy store.

My daughter ran off with him before I'd even finished making him.

A Barrel of Monkeys!

Who remembers this toy?

I never had one, which is perhaps why I felt compelled to crochet it.

The pattern is in my Etsy store.

Check out the cute barrel. It holds eight to ten monkeys.

The arms, legs, and tails interlock to form chains, patterns or just a big mass of monkeyness.

I loved this quote.

"One monkey arouses a great deal of amusement. Two or more then double the interest and amusement. If one were to release a barrel full of monkeys, we must suppose that their antics would become hilariously comical." - Charles E. Funk

(Updated) There's another way to do the arms, legs, and tail. Below are the picture of the little monkey and the instructions (both from Midds on Crochetville).

"For the arms I sl st towards the end of the pipe cleaner, folded it over and sc 8 times close together around the pipe cleaner. I cut a long tail. Then I took the pipe cleaner and fed it through the body at round 6. I then repeated the process on the other side of the pipe cleaner. I then fed the long tails through the monkey and knotted them together and hid the yarn inside. I did the same thing for the legs except I did 10 sc and placed them at round 9. For the tail I ch. 11, sc in 2nd ch from hook and across for a total of 10 sc."

Fluffy Bunny

My son loves crafts. He's definitely my son. All you have to do is mention pompoms or pipe cleaners and his little eyes brighten and he starts jumping for joy. A couple years ago I bought a bag of 750 pompoms. We haven't even made a dent in the bag. So we let my daughter (two years old) play in the pompoms while my son and I got everything ready.

So today we made little bunnies for Easter. It's based on a Family Fun magazine pattern, but we exchanged the beads for pompoms. He got to make two bunnies (named Hoppy and Fuzzy Wuzzy) and I made one for my daughter. Before we had the mess cleaned up, my son was already asking to make a bed for his bunnies.

Peguins!

In honor of the snow and ice storms that seem to be occurring everywhere but where we live, I made penguins. Of course, when you find irresistible patterns, you make them regardless of the weather. Both penguins are headed for Kristie's Toy Drive come summer. It gets way to hot to keep penguins in Phoenix during the summer.

The pattern on the left is from Lionbrand's website. It's an easy pattern and works up really fast.

The one on the right is from Peggytoes. The pattern actually calls for black eyelash yarn for all the black parts. It makes a really cute fuzzy penguin. However, I didn't have enough and I hate working with it. So I tend to do fuzzy yarn projects when the kids are in bed. But I just couldn't wait to try out this pattern. Fortunately he looks pretty cute in just plain old Red Heart Super Saver. I left off some of the details from the original pattern. Partly because I prefer the simplistic and because I wanted it to be a little less girly.

Peggy Read is giving away a copy of the pattern for the large penguin (she has one in thread too) if you have donated to Kristie's Toy Drive in the past or as soon as you donate one for the upcoming drive. You have until June 2008 for the current drive.

A Bear

My son is convinced that he needs this bear. He's sure that he doesn't have enough bears. We go through this every time I make something. Even sweaters. As soon as I put the item away, he forgets about it. This particular bear is joining the Toy Drive stash that will be sent to Kristie next summer. He looks a little plain right now. I think I'm going to have to dig a little deeper into my craft stuff to see if I can find a good ribbon for him.

The pattern was a free one and can be found here.

A Pocket Dragon

I wanted to try to make a pocket sized dragon. It just sounded fun. So, here is attempt #1.

There are some things that I'd like to change. I think the face looks like a pig. Plus there are a few other things I'd like to do differently.

A Baby Crocodile

My kids' room has been home to a lot of things. We've had a beta fish, tadpoles, frogs, a snake, and of course the many messes. It is now home to a baby crocodile. He's 6 1/2 inches long.

A year ago I made some no-slip-clips for my daughter and had a few of the clips left over. I rediscovered them last week and they were just begging to be made into something. I put one inside the crocodile's mouth. So this little guy has a pretty good grip when he bites.

My son is thrilled with him and has been clipping him all over the house.

Holiday Friends Pattern Available!

The patterns are finished for my Holiday Friends! The pattern is available at Em's Emporium!

Holiday Friends

I do realize that Christmas is still more than 2 months away, but I wanted to finish these so I could get to my various other projects.

The Hliday Friends crochet pattern will include the instructions for all four -the reindeer, Santa, the snowman, and elf. It will be for sale in Em's Emporium in about a week (my testers are trying out the pattern right now).

The poor reindeer almost didn't get ears. I wondered why it looked like something was missing on him. He looks much better now that he has ears.

You can't see it in the picture, but Santa has thumbs sticking out on his mittens. It looks really cute. Maybe I should take a better picture. I'm going to put candy in his bag. When it gets closer to Christmas and I can actually put him out where people will see him.

I love this little guy. He actually has 3 different hats because I couldn't decide what style he should have. I think this hat is my favorite though.

And lastly, here's the elf. He almost had a beard, but it made him look like Hagrid from Harry Potter. The elf has thumbs just like Santa.

Tom Turkey

My mom always called our Thanksgiving turkey by name: "Tom." So in honor of all the Toms that she stuffed and served over the years, here's one that you can stuff and save.

I had fun with him, except for the tail. I think I redid it at least 4 or 5 times before I was happy with it. He's only 4 inches tall. Yep, short and fat!

He's available to purchase at Em’s Emporium at etsy.com!

I'm hoping to have some of his Christmas relatives coming soon! While my daughter napped in the car, I wrote down some ideas for more little Holiday friends. What else is there to do when you're stuck in the Wal Mart parking lot waiting for a sick kid to wake up for that dreaded shopping trip that you can no longer avoid because you're down to only 2 diapers at home?

Snake for the Toy Drive

Here's toy #2 for next years toy drive. A little green snake. It's the same pattern as the orange and white snake I made before. Now to hide it before my kids see it.

Spider

My son is under the impression that I should buy him something everytime I go to the store. Even when he's not there. When I drop him off at preschool he tells me to go to WalMart and buy him something. So when we went to JoAnns, he fell in love with a spider that he just had to have. Needless to say, I didn't buy it for him. I did tell him that I could make him one though. So after waiting for 2 weeks, I finally got around to making his spider for him.

I used Patons ChaCha in purple together with Red Heart Super Saver in black and a big hook (size N?). The body is just a flat ball shape. The head is a bowl shape (not a complete sphere), stuffed and sewn on.

The legs are sc-ed over pipe cleaners so that they are bendable and match the rest of the spider. I bent over the ends of the pipecleaners and tied the yarn to the bent end before starting. Then sc along the pipecleaner, stopping 1/2 inch before the end. Fasten off, and leave a long tail for sewing. I glued the pipecleaner on, and then used the tail to sew it in place. So the legs should survive two small children!