Valentine's Swap Gift 2012

Two days ago I received my Valentine's swap package from my partner CyndyinLawerence.  

My favorite item, and my youngest son's as well, is the felted sweater tic-tac-toe board that is also a bag. The Xs and Os (aka hugs & kisses) are also made from felted sweaters, and they are all very soft.  My son and I played a few rounds of tic-tac-toe after I opened the package.  If you look above the bag you will see a blue bookmark as well.  My close up photo of it was blurry, so I won't be sharing it.  

My partner had gone to the Oz museum recently and gave me this postcard from there.  She said that this hat was the hardest thing to make.  My son said that I looked very pretty in it.

She has 3 bunnies, so she made this dishcloth with a bunny on it.  I'll think of her every time I use it.

This cupcake is very large.  The beads and sequence came from a t-shirt that she turned into tarn (t-shirt yarn).  

She said that this was grass, but my son and I both think that it is a bunny.  Either way it is squishy and soft and very cute.

She made a card out of fused plastic bags and potato chip bags.  She also gave me several notecards, my favorite being the unicorn throwing up a rainbow.

She also sent me this strawberry chocolate tea.  I've never heard of such a tea before.  Also included in the package was some soda tabs for me to make things out of.  She did not buy anything for this swap which is pretty cool.  Also she used reclaimed yarn for many of the projects (from unraveled sweaters).

It was great getting to know her and making things for her during this swap.  I feel that I have made a new friend.  I loved everything that she had made for me.  We both mailed our packages on Saturday, but mine isn't suppose to arrive until Friday.  I can't wait to share what I made for her.

Vacation Crafting

We just got back from vacation last week.  I only turned on my computer once during the trip, and that was to make more room on my camera.  I'm going to be making two blog posts, and both will be kind of long so that I can show you everything.  This one will be all crafty goodness, and the other one will be photos from my trip.  I am loving my photos these days, and it feels good that my dad the photographer thinks that they are great.  Now on with the crafty goodness.

I finally finished this Buddha 2 weeks ago before we left on your trip.  He is 15 inches tall sitting and 24 inches tall standing.  He took me a few weeks to make, because I had a lot going at the time.  You can find the pattern here: http://craftingenue.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/littleuns-lotus-buddha.pdf

He's a birthday present for a friend of ours (my husband and myself).  Our friend loved him.  He said that Buddha is in full lotus on his shelf.

I also finished crocheting 3 more Ocean Grove washcloths 2 weeks ago.

I made my 4 year old son this rainbow bunny in time for him to sleep with him on our first night away from home.  He had also brought the other two bunnies that I made him to sleep with.  He picked out the yarn and said that he wanted a rainbow bunny.  The eyes are made from eco-fi felt.  I left off the mouth because no one thought that he needed one.

Here are all 3 of his bunnies in the bed that he slept in at his grandparents' house.  He picked out the colors for all 3 of them.  Blue bunny, Rainbow bunny, and Cookie.  

I started crocheting the orange amigurumi monster from Lily's Sugar'n Cream's Bright Ideas book last Friday.  It was hard to work on it during our trip, because I had to keep count of the rows.  Thats hard to do when people are talking to you, lol.  Its going to be a Christmas present for my 4 year old.  I want to make him all four monsters from the book.  It is one of those mini paper back books that you see next to the yarn.

While at my mom's house I saw this really cool looking scrubby in her sink that looked like brain coral.  She just made up the pattern.  Mine is tighter than hers, but then she didn't really give me much in the way of a pattern.  She just said to double every stitch.  Her center was much more open than mine.  I used the sparkly red Christmas cotton yarn and an I hook.  I single crochet 8 times into the center loop, then I doubled every stitch until I achieved the size that I wanted.  This could be used in the kitchen or in the shower.  I finished crocheting it yesterday as we were driving through New York.  I want to make another one using the white Christmas cotton yarn, but using either a hdc or dc instead of sc.

With the left over rainbow bunny yarn, I started making a large granny square blanket for my 4 year old. He fell in love with the one that I made for my mother-in-law 10 years ago.  He asked for a rainbow one.  Right now everything has to be either rainbow or blue with him, so I'm going to use both of those in this blanket.  This is how far I got last Sunday before I ran out of yarn.  I bought more yarn today, and have started using aqua yarn.

I'm starting to feel the Christmas crafting bug coming on.

Pink Best Bunny

Last night I started crocheting an amigurumi bunny (best bunny by lionbrand) for my oldest son's teacher.  His wife is pregnant with a girl, and this will be our gift to him / his baby as a thank you / end of the school year gift.  The picture above is from this afternoon at the park.  The pattern is on my kindle.  I love that I can put pdf patterns on there, because that means that I can have several patterns with me at all times.  It makes crafting on-the-go much easier.  In the photo I had finished crocheting the head and body, and I had started working on one ear.  This has become an almost daily thing recently: crafting at the park while my youngest son plays with other kids.

Here is the bunny.  I used Vanna's Choice yarn (lionbrand yarn).  In the past I have used safety eyes on the bunnies, but since this is for a baby I stitched the eyes with yarn.  My son will be giving his two teachers their gifts tomorrow.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Old Crafts Revisited

Last Tuesday the library brought out the leftover items from past crafting days.  It was great, because my son got to make things that he didn't make before (due to missing that day).  

He combined two past crafts into one: the sun and the hat.  

He has really gotten into rainbows lately, so he asked me to color rainbows on the craft sticks, the bunny's ears, and on the bunny.  The antenna on the butterfly is two colors of pipe cleaner twisted together and folded in half.  After taking this picture we changed the hat.  We took a 2nd cut out hat piece and stapled it to this hat piece to make more of a pirate hat.

Best Bunny III & Friends

After seeing the bunny that I made for a baby shower, my 3 year old wanted another bunny.  He wanted the body the same color as the baby shower one, but he wanted it to have dark blue ears (his favorite color).  I had run out of blue Vanna's Choice yarn, so I let him pick out the color that he wanted from the store.  I finished making the bunny last night.

Here are all of the bunnies that I have made him with links to the free patterns.  Best Bunny, Chocolate Bunny, and Bella Bunny (white bunny).  I made the chocolate bunny and some carrots for his first Easter.  Bella bunny was made for his second Easter.  The blue best bunny was made because he told me one night that he loves blue bunnies.  He wrapped a small boa around his blue bunny.  He has been sleeping with all of his bunnies this week.  Its really cute.  It really feels good when your child (or anyone for that matter) really loves something that you made for them.

Blue Bunny

Last night, just before bed time, my 3 year old told me that he loves blue bunnies.  He repeated that statement a few more times in bed.  He has been liking a lot of blue things lately.  So I found this cute free pattern on Lion Brand's website called Best Bunny.  I used Vanna's Choice yarn, and crocheted this very easy pattern in about 2 hours (or however long The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is).  My son was a happy little boy this morning, carrying the bunny around by it's ears.