Crocheting - Lion Hat with Button Eyes

I made a second lion crochet style hat.  The first hat I had made was toddler size which was too small (as tested on my son) for my friend's son. This time I used the child size pattern and made the face exactly like the Tiger pattern from the Repeat Crafter Me blogger.  I made the mane using the Unicorn pattern from the same site for the technique and used images of other lion hats I Googled for inspiration on the look of the mane.  Overall I think it was easier using buttons for the eyes and the face itself looks more expressive.  The size should be better too (as tested on my daughter). I look forward to hearing what the recipient thinks of the hat!

Creatology Build-A-Snowman Foam Stickers: Classmate Holiday Cards

My daughter had already made quite a few ornaments this holiday season for her teachers and family members, so when it came to coming up with an idea for her classmates I found this tub of build-a-snowman foam stickers I purchased awhile ago.  It turned out to be a easy, fairly fast craft for us to do together and I came up with a way to deliver them to her friends without getting them sticky.  First we organized all the pieces into piles.  Then I put the snowman bases together for my daughter to save some time (we decided to do this the night before the last day of school before the holiday break)! The face circle on top of a larger circle on top of an even larger sticker.  Then I gave them to my daughter to decorate.  She had a ton of fun picking out which hats, scarves, mittens, arms and buttons to place on each snowman.  She even came up with the clever idea to color mittens with white crayon to make it look like there was snow on the mittens.  While she decorated each snowman, I decided to place each snowman on a piece of black construction paper.  The nice thing about this foam sticker set is no glue required.  Each piece is a sticker thus the back of the snowman was sticky and placing each one on paper gave them a nice background without sticking to anything else.  I wrote "Merry Christmas" at the top of the black construction paper using a white crayon, wrote "From:" underneath then had my daughter take a break from decorating the snowmen to write her name on each strip of black paper.  I didn't have her class list so instead of writing their names, we figured getting a unique snowman would be nice for everything and they would at least know who made them.  Overall we made about 18 of them and they were a hit at school.  Here is a sampling below:

 Full view

 Closer view

 The snowman with snow on his mittens

Foam sticker kit

Crocheting - Lion Hat

I made my second crocheted hat by request, a lion.  My friend's son lost his lion hat and she asked if I could make him one.  I did but it turns out I made it too small.  I followed the toddler pattern, tried in on my son and it was too small, so I will regift it to a friend who just had a baby boy and whom I was planning on making a fat for anyway.  I'll use the child size pattern and make a new lion hat for my other friend.  I used the Tiger pattern from the Repeat Crafter Me site combined with her Unicorn pattern to learn how to make a mane.  The face I made myself stitching the eyes and the nose/mouth like I do on my bear loveys to save some time.  I may use large buttons for eyes in the future instead.  Maybe for the next lion.  Overall I think it looks cute!

Crocheting - Fox Amigurumi

At Barnes & Noble on Black Friday, I found a cute crochet set for half off. The kit includes a book filled with 12 patterns, yarn for two specific projects (fox and fawn), crochet hook, stuffing, tapestry needle, safety eyes and black embroidery floss. My daughter wanted me to make her the fox first. These little guys are not for crocheting beginners (which I still consider myself to be) but I made it through.  I made each body part (having to start over a few times).  The black yarn is hard to work with because it is harder to see each stitch.  The white isn't easy either for the same reason.  Then I had to sew all the parts together (my least favorite part).  Using a tapestry/yarn needle makes it a lot easier than just using the crochet hook (which I have done in the past). Overall I am happy with how the fox turned out especially for my first try.  I think I will go back to making hats for awhile because I tackle my next woodland creature!

Crocheting - Christmas Ornament: Star/Flower

I decided to crochet an ornament for my in-laws for Christmas. I found a Crochet Star Ornament Pattern to try. Needless to say my star turned into a flower!  I started off okay but during the second round I made a mistake.  In the third round I made another mistake but I figured out how to make it look like a flower instead by completing the main step in the third round a couple of extra times.  Not bad for my first try.  Next time I will try to actually make a star!

Creatology Holiday Traditional Christmas House Kit and Candy Shop Kit

We have been working on various ornament kits for fun Christmas craft projects, but I decided to try out a couple 3-D kits I've seen on display.  I chose the Traditional Christmas House and the Candy Shop.  My 2 1/2 year old son "helped" with the house and my 4 year old daughter helped with the candy shop.  They are a little hard to put together.  My daughter wanted to take it apart and remake the candy shop a couple of times but each time it was harder to put together. Not every piece is a sticker, some pieces need to be glued on the structure.  Also there are a lot of pieces and we misplaced a few.  We decorated in our own way when there were missing pieces or when there was a part that kept falling off.  Overall they came out very cute and we'll keep them displayed for the holiday season.  They would not last until next year, so we'll just make a couple new ones next year.