Hedgehogs are the cutest!

I love hedgehogs! They are just the cutest lil things! When I saw the hedgehog pattern in Amigurumi no Nakamatachi I just had to make it! The pattern was fairly simple to follow so I'll most likely be making more of these fellows in the future. I used Bernat Alpaca Natural Blends yarn in ebony for his back and I was really happy with the texture it made!

Fuzzy Bunny

Last week I finished up an amigurumi bunny I made from a pattern in Amigurumi & Komono. I sure am enjoying this book! I have a few more projects I've finished up over the last week including the black sheep in my new banner. I'll be posting those in the next few days.

Needle Felting!

Around Thanksgiving I ordered a small needle felting kit from Jo-Ann's. I finally had a chance to try it out over the holiday break and I totally fell in love with it. The end result was this cutie little kitty.
Needle felting is addictive! Poking wool over and over with a VERY sharp needle is really fun and really therapeutic in a way, lol. I only jabbed my finger once... trust me once you jab it after that you are very careful not to do it again. This is not something I can work on while the kids are at home. I know they will distract me and I'll jab myself!
My mom gave me a $40 Jo-Ann's gift card for Christmas and I ordered a ton of wool in a whole range of colors. So be prepared to see more needle felted cuties coming real soon!

'Twas a Crafty Christmas & A Lucky New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!
Our family had a lovely white Christmas... thankfully the snow melted by New Years!
My husband bought me a wonderful set of James Bond movies (I LOVE 007, hehe). And I bought him the Complete V collection and a "The Killer's" t-shirt. The kids bought me a book "Amigurumi & Komono"!! I was really lucky this year!
We got the kids the usual video games and toys they asked for.. plus I made them each a crafty gift.

For my youngest son I made Totoro. Following a pattern from http://heavens-hellcat.livejournal.com/420.html. I used felt for the tummy and around the eyes instead of crocheting. I was pretty happy with the way he turned out except.. his arms look a bit to buff! Tayler absolutely loved him and now wants me to make the little white Totoro and a Soot Sprite too.

My older son Skyler has wanted a real sock monkey for a long time and this summer I was lucky enough to find "Create your own sock monkey" project at a yard sale last summer. It even had the real Rockford Red Heel socks. The pattern was pretty simple and the hardest part was just trying to cut the socks up in the proper way.

A couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to win a give away from Berrysprite. It included 2 cutie pencils, 2 bento sauce containers, a zipper pouch (that were the perfect size for my Clover crochet hooks, woot!) and one of her new Bearlets! Wowies is he a cutie! Berryspite is just now putting these Bearlets out in her shop and I highly recommend them. Great quality workmanship and they are soooooooooo freaking adorable!!

My first Toy Society drop!

I made this Santa for my first toy drop at the Toy Society! I dropped him off at my local Trader Joes in the Hollywood District of Portland Oregon.
You can check out The Toy Society at http://www.thetoysociety.blogspot.com/ if you are interested in making your own toys to drop off.

Cabin Fever!

Well the big snow storm the weatherman forecasted hit us hard and will not let up! It's been snowing and freezing rain on and off since Sunday. Plus we are supposed to get another 3-4 inches of snow tomorrow. Having a white Christmas sure is going to be nice but... My husband has missed over a week of work.. with no pay. Plus the garbage isn't being collected because the trucks do not have chains. All over the city people are losing power because the ice from the freezing rain is making trees and branches fall. Our neighbor's tree fell and came really close to hitting our other car.
The family is starting to have cabin fever too, lol. We walked over to the Post Office and grocery store yesterday. We saw about 5 cars and a bus stuck in the snow. They all had chains on but the snow is just too deep and there is that pesky layer of ice underneath.
The kids are having a blast with it at least! They went sledding down our hill today!

Hiro, Crafty Wonderland & the Crazy Snow Week.

A couple months ago I bought a really cute Amigurumi book.. 大好きなあみぐるみ (Handmade Knit Amigurumi ISBN:9784277172240) from the Portland Kinokuniya book store. It's out in Beaverton on Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy inside the Uwajimaya grocery store. I absolutely love this store and could spend hours browsing through it. Anyway.. I finally finished making the first amigurumi from that book. I named him Hiro (yes as in Hiro from Hero's, lol).

Last Sunday was Crafty Wonderland's Super Colossal Holiday Sale at the convention center. 125 tables of crafty goodness. I'd been planning to go to this for months and when the day finally came so did the snow!! It rarely snows here in Portland. The mountains around us usually get all the snow.. but here on the valley snow it only happens a few times a year and then it's normally just a trace. But Sunday it snowed a lot! We had to take the train to avoid driving in it. The line to get in was still pretty short by the time we got there and we even ended up getting goody bags. I was really surprised how much really cool things were in them.. books.. hair goodies.. a sake cup.. yeah it was the bomb. Totally worth the snowy trip to get there and it wasn't as busy as I was expecting. The booths were all really cool and I bought a really cute ceramic coaster with a bunny and squirrel for my computer table.

It kept snowing and melting then freezing all week on and off! The kids didn't have school on Monday, Wednesday or Friday because of the snow and ice. And now the weatherman is forecasting more snow for tomorrow and calling it the biggest storm of the year! The nice thing about it is that tomorrow is my youngest son's 7th birthday and he is really exciting to go sledding!