BB-8 amigurumi

Hello! Well, I decided it was finally time to show you the photos of my completed BB-8 amigurumi!

I used a pattern by Mysterious Cats and it was totally worth the $4.66! ^___^ It was very easy to follow and quick to work up. I actually finished making this little BB-8 at the end of last year, on the same day that I started making them. That's gotta be some kind of record!

 

But then I had all these ideas about staging for the photos - like making a background of Jakku and making a Rey costume for one of my Blythe dolls so they could pose together - and as a result I procrastinated over taking any photos for four months. I expect that is also some kind of record!

Anyway, when I was taking photos of my Bee cosplay, I also grabbed BB-8 and finally did a little photoshoot. There is a little sandy patch under our letterbox in which nothing grows, which I figured was close enough to Jakku ~___^

 

Also, can you believe it's only just over three weeks until International Star Wars Day? I haven't even decided what I'm going to make this year!

 

I think there is a strong possibility it will be another iteration of BB-8 though; just look at that adorable little face!

- Lisa xx

Easy skeleton hand hair clips

Hello! I just have a tiny little craft to show you today since I am in the final weeks of my degree now (!!!!) and have been making more essays than projects. I have just handed in the final assignment for my Cultural and Media studies class, and have two weeks to write two more research essays. And then I am done! I am really excited, but also very nervous as this means I will soon have to find myself a job. Eeek!

I brought these plastic skeleton hands from ebay, which are apparently meant as Halloween decorations. Like, I guess you just scatter them around? I am not sure. I brought them because I wanted the kind of jewellery that I see in the goth shops, but am too cheap to shell out for ~___^

 

I got ten hands, so I now have plenty to work with! These clips were very easy to make; I just glued the clips onto the underside of the palms, making sure that the length of the clip was hidden behind a finger. I used E6000, so they're staying fairly well, but I think a different style of hair clip would work better for this. I just used what I had in my stash, but I will be keeping an eye out for better alternatives.

 

My next task is to make myself a necklace, however, I think I also need to look into varnishing or sealing them somehow as the black on the hands rubs off very easily. I have some spray varnish, so I'm going to give that a go.

Looking at these pictures makes me feel a little sad as I think soon I will have to say goodbye to my pink hair! ; ___ ; At the end of this month my job search begins, and also my brother is getting married, so I was planning on dying my hair a very dark red to look a bit more "normal". But, that's apparently not normal enough and I have been told brown or black is what is required! I really am not looking forward to letting all the bleaching time I've been putting into my 'do go to waste.

I think I will try using Manic Panic black and hope that it will fade, in the same way that the blue, purple, red, and pink dyes that I've used from them have faded, so hopefully I can go back to brighter colours afterwards without having to rebleach. If anyone has any experience in this dilemma, I'd love your advice! Otherwise, perhaps I will just get myself a wig ~___^

- Lisa xx

Hipster Princess Bubblegum costume

Sigh! Another Halloween has come and gone ... next year, when I'm not at uni, I plan to dedicate a lot more time to decorating and crafting and costume creation and just general Halloween shenanigans! However, I did still have a lovely Halloween, and I succeeded in making myself a costume so, without further ado, may I present ...

The hipster Princess Bubblegum! ^___^ Do people even do hipster versions of things anymore? This is how out of the loop I am. However, I have big, thick rimmed glasses and I didn't want to wear my contacts so this is the costume I went with! ^___^

 

The scarf, shorts, and shoes were thrifted (Bec actually found the shoes for me, so a shoutout to her! ^___^), and I already had the belt, top, tights, coffee cup, and bag so this was a fairly easy and inexpensive costume to put together.

 

After I made my crown, I guess I could have called it quits, but what is a hipster without some jewellery? (I actually don't even know. Do hipsters wear jewellery? I've heard they like triangles, do they wear triangles as jewellery?)

I watched this fantastic tutorial video by Nerd Burger and decided that I simply *must* have some donut jewellery. I'm not really sure if there are any donut people in Candy Kingdom, but I just couldn't resist.

They were really easy to make; make sure you check out the video as Cazz explains the process wonderfully. I already had some Super Sculpey in the beige colour that I used for the dough, and I picked up some pink and purple puff paints and blue and yellow sculpey from the craft store for the icing and sprinkles (I already had the sculpey in the other colours).

I made one purple donut into a brooch, and two smaller pink donuts into earrings, just by gluing the pin/earring backs on with E6000.

I also made this brooch using some of the light blue shimmery clay; mostly because I had this song in my head the entire time I was crafting things for this costume.

I also had a go at making a little Peppermint Butler brooch; it's not perfect (I need to work on making sure I don't leave nail marks on everything and I think his head stripes are too raised ...) but I think it's pretty cute anyway.

And, speaking of cute, you may have noticed that in the pictures above I have a little friend riding on my shoulder - Science the Candy Corn Rat! Yay! Pops de Milk made an adorable Science, and even shared the pattern for her so I knew I had to make one too ^___^

Patricia's pattern was lovely to follow; very simple to understand with with lots of pictures! (I always like to have photos to refer to so I can tell if I'm on the right track with a pattern!)

 

I did my Science's face differently in that I sewed on small felt shapes instead of using safety eyes and embroidery for the eyes and mouth respectively. I did actually have some 7mm safety eyes that I was going to use but when I put them in they just didn't look right. I didn't have any smaller ones, and I was too lazy to go back to the craft store, so I used felt instead! ^___^

One thing I must get better at doing is making the legs for amigurumi - mine always come out slightly bigger at the base than at the top and I think they are meant to be the same the whole way through. Practise makes perfect, I guess!

 

My Science also has more of a curly tail; this is probably because I crochet too tight. However, it may loose its curl in time so I'm not too concerned about it.

I also crocheted two more brooches (one can never have too many brooches, right? ~___^). For the lollipop I used a pattern by Twinkie Chan, but used part of a wooden skewer instead of crocheting a stick. For the sweet, I crocheted a rectangle, sewed it into a tube, put a scrunched up bit of paper in the middle, and then tied yarn around each side of a ball. Then I just glued brooch backings onto both of them ^___^

 

As always, there is so much more things I could have crafted for this costume (Peppermint Butler handbag, Lady Rainicorn bracelet, science glassware charm bracelet ...) but I think I did pretty well considering I was also finishing off an assignment ~___^

The zombie project I was planning has pretty much completely fallen through at this stage so I'm not sure if that will be appearing on here anytime soon, which is a pity since I still think it's a cool idea! I might keep working on it. I've still got eight tiny donuts to make into something though (plus three major essays, blah!) so I've got enough to keep me busy. I'm thinking maybe a bracelet? Or magnets? Or more hair bows? Hmmm.

Until next week!

- Lisa xx

Princess Bubblegum crochet crown

Hello! I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of my time thinking about costumes. They're just such fun! I love going to Oz ComicCon and Supanova and seeing all the creative ideas that people have come up with, but Halloween has a special place in my heart. I mean, it's a spooky day where you can dress up and dance with a zombie; is there anything better? ~___^

This year, since my hair is currently pink, I've decided to go as Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time. Yay! I'm  going to do a closet cosplay and also go as a hipster version of PB; this is mostly because I don't really like wearing my contact lens and my glasses are so black and thick-rimmed that, well, they kinda suit the part!

 

So I've got a pink top, handkerchief scarf, skirt, and tights but to be truly PB-esque I needed a crown. I found lots of different ones, made out of all kinds of different materials, but I was most inspired by a crochet version I found and so decided to give that a go.

I also wrote down what I did to make this one so you can give it a go if you like! My crown is quite a bit bigger than others I've seen which I'm still kinda on the fence about. I like it because it stands out but ... I don't know, maybe it's too big? Either way, I guess you could just alter the pattern slightly so it suits you more. I will also mention that this hasn't been tested and so there are probably mistakes; if you find any, let me know and I'll add in corrections! ^___^

 

Princess Bubblegum Crochet Crown

Using a 4mm hook and yellow yarn (I used 100% wool in an 8ply), chain 120.

Row 1: Chain one (this is your turning stitch) and then do a single stitch in each chain stitch (120 stitches)

Row 2, 3, 4: Repeat row 1

Row 5: Chain one (turning stitch). Do a single stitch in the next 53 stitches. Chain 3, treble in the same stitch you just did a single stitch in (you will have a single and a treble in the same stitch). Treble in the next 13 stitches. Chain 3, do a single stitch in the same stitch you just did a treble in. Single stitch along the rest of the row. This will give you a segment in the middle of the crown which is slightly raised. Tie off your yarn.

Row 6: Tie your yarn onto the raised treble segment, four stitches in. Make one chain stitch and then do a single stitch in eight stitches; this will give you another slightly smaller raised section.

Row 7 - 22: Chain 1, single stitch in each stitch (8 stitches) 

Row 22 - 26: Chain 1, treble in each stitch (8 stitches). You could do these rows in single stitch as well if you wanted to, but they will be covered by the round part of the crown and I find trebles faster and easier to do. Tie off your yarn.

Crochet a flat circle using single stitch; I did 12 rows and my circle has a diameter of about 7.5 cm.

Cut out a circle slightly smaller than your crochet one from light blue felt. I painted my felt circle with glitter mod podge to make it sparkle!

Sew the felt circle to the crochet circle, and the crochet circle to the end of the uppy bit of the crown (yup, that's a technical term).

Sew the two rectangle ends of the crown together so that it forms a ring. 

Tie on your end at the back of the crown, where your sewn join is. Single stitch around the edges of your entire crown. This will smooth out the blocky edges of the uppy bit and just generally make everything look nicer ^___^

 

My crown was looking a bit droopy, so I sewed a thin craft stick to the back of the uppy bit. I was worried that this would make it really uncomfortable, but I was wearing my crown around the house last night (as you do) and it was fine. I may sew a little cushion over the end of it anyway, just to make sure I don't finish Halloween with a mark on my head ~___^ Other options to fix this would be to make it shorter, or maybe use fabric starch.

 

I, as usual, have grand plans for this costume which probably won't get done. I was planning on making a visit to the craft store today to pick up some orange wool to make this amazing Science the Rat but last night I broke my toe. Well, it may only be fractured but I enjoy being overly dramatic. Still, it's meant that a lot of my plans for the week have to be delayed since walking is rather painful.

On the bright side, I will be sitting down a lot over the next couple of days which will be the perfect reason to get ahead in my assignments. Yay? ~___^

Are you crafting anything for Halloween this year? I have two more Halloween crafts on my list, but it looks like they'll have to wait until next week. I've had this zombie project in my head for *ages* so even though Halloween will offically be over, I'm still going to make them! I can't wait to show you ^___^

- Lisa xx

P.S. Does the gem part of the crown remind anyone else of the Stargate?

Rainbow cloud ribbon hairbow holder

Hello! As you probably know, I really like hair bows. I like wearing them, and I like making them and this has resulted in me having *a lot* of them! I was keeping all of my hair things in a plastic cauldron on my dressing table but it was really getting much too full and so I decided to make some hair bow storage.

I've had clouds on the brain for some reason lately so I pretty quickly settled on a cloud shape with rainbow ribbons to attach the bows to. I went and visited my dad a couple of weeks ago and while we were doing some shed work (this is code for mainly drinking cups of tea while looking at blue prints and throwing the ball for the dog) I explained to him my idea. Despite seeming somewhat confused why a grown woman would want, let alone need, a hair bow holder, dad dug out a scrap piece of wood for me to use.

I drew out a cloud shape with a pencil, and then used my jigsaw to cut it out. It looked a bit rough though, so dad and I used some small files to shape the puffy bits (that's the technical term) a bit better and then I sanded down the whole thing so it was nice and smooth.

 

I gave the cloud a coat of flat white spray paint, added a smiley face, and then used a staple gun to attach ribbons to the back of it. I also added a hanging wire by hammering in two small nails and wrapping picture wire around them. 

I used about a metre of ribbon for each colour; my collection has definitely got room to grow now! Please excuse my small bookcase butting into the photo here; it's made of jarrah and is therefore waayyy too heavy to move. 

I made most of the bows on here; but the clover and cupcake clips at the bottom are made by Twinkie Chan, the Catbug, BMO, Bee and Puppycat, and LSP bows I brought from Oz Comic Con, and the white and black polka dot bow was made for me by Bec ^___^

 

It looks good next to my hoop wall, and now I can actually see all my bows at once which I think will make choosing them to match outfits much easier ^___^ I will admit that this project would also look pretty at home in a little kid's room but, hey, there's no reason why grown ups can't have rainbow clouds too, right? ~___^

I'm so excited for Halloween this year, I've got a project planned for each week of October and I can't wait to get started on them and share them with you! I'm thinking zombies, witches, vampires, monsters, bats, skulls ... no wonder this is my favourite holiday! ~___^

Until then!

- Lisa xx

Crochet Instagram Cushion

Hello! Guess what? My Instagram cushion is finally finished!! Omg, I was really struggling through this project; I had forgotten how much time classes and studying actually takes up! I think my next couple of projects better be quick little ones that I can do between classes ~___^

 

It's looking kinda out of shape here - maybe I shouldn't have hugged it in joy before taking the photos? I was just really happy it was finally done!

 

Here's how it looks on our, rather overcrowded, couch. Our couch is actually a single bed which a large piece of wood added as a back; I cover it in vintage sheets and tons of pillows and crochet blankets and it's a lovely little nest to snuggle into. Also in this picture you can see my flamingo cross-stitch, my first flower crown (currently worn by Marty the Moose), the Companion Cube, Sweet Tooth, Lumpy Space Princess, the Ctrl Alt Del cushions, and the little ewok pillow. Gosh! It will probably not surprise you that our house is filled with things I have made and thrifted - it has been affectionately described as "walking into some kind of strange opshop" ~___^

 

To make this cushion, I first crocheted 32 rows of 90 trebles in some creamy white wool that I had in my stash. 12 rows in brown finished off the main part of the cushion. The lens is made with 12 rounds of black wool and finished with two of white.

The corner square is a granny square, made with five rows, and the coloured lines on the other corner were made by doing 31 chain stitches and then making a treble in 28 of those stitches (the other three are used as the turning chain). Since I used different kinds of yarn for each of the coloured lines, they ended up not quite even. I didn't notice this until I'd sewed them down and I honestly wasn't bothered enough to unpick them and do them again. I don't find it super noticeable, but if you were making a version of this and were concerned, I'd use the same type of wool for all colours if possible or at least measure them better then I did! ~___^

Since this project had already taken me longer than I had hoped, I decided against crocheting the back and instead sewed on a piece of black fleece. It's very soft, and makes hugging this pillow extra nice ^___^

 

Hopefully going into week three of this semester I will be getting the hang of balancing school and life again. One thing that has also been taking up a bit of my time is sports - this is very surprising for me! I used to craft a lot simply because with my chronic fatigue I couldn't do much else (and even then crafting was sometimes a stretch!), but that seems to have gone away a bit and with my diabetes getting under control ( ... mostly!) I have much more energy for jogging, fencing, rock climbing, ten pin bowling ...! I can't be too mad since I've been having so much fun, but I guess it's just another thing that I have to balance against everything else ^___^ Maybe I should craft  myself some fancy new sports shorts?

Anyway, here's to time management and the weekend! I hope you have a good one ^___^

- Lisa xx

Geometric silk skirt from a vintage dress

Ok, so, you know how sometimes you find something in an op-shop and it's just awe-inspiring in its magnificance? Well, that's how I felt when I found this dress.

That pattern! Omg, swoon! However, the over-sized floppy sleeves, the dropped elasticated waist, and the weirdly high and straight neckline made for a dress that was, ummm, decidedly ugly.

 But, hey, it was only $8, so I brought this 100% silk vintage "beauty" home. And promptly shocked all the vintage-lovers in the world when I took a pair of shiny, sharp scissors to her. Honestly, I still feel a little guilty about that. But with a thick bit of elastic and my trusty sewing machine, I've now got an enthusiastically geometric skirt perfect for a night out!

 That helps assuage the guilt somewhat ~__^ All I did to make this was measure from the original hem to the length I wanted my new skirt to be which, in my case, was about 57cm. I overlocked the top to prevent fraying, cut my elastic to size, and sewed it into a circle. I pinned the skirt to the elastic and then just sewed the two pieces together, stretching the elastic as I went. I broke a needle doing that (*wince*) but other than that, it worked out just fine! ^__^ Since I used the original hem, I just left that alone. Yay for shortcuts! ^__^

By the way, posts like this really remind me why I'm not a fashion blogger. I made poor Rebecca take about 30 photos of me in varyingly silly poses to make this post. And in basically every second photo I was either blinking, moving too much, making a stupid face, or doing ol' crazy eyes. Sometimes all at once! ~__^ Tres awkward.

 

 But anyway, what do you think? I hope you like it! ^__^ I'll be back next week with some more Halloween inspired crafts. Yay! I just love this time of year, don't you? ^__^

- Lisa xx