Cute Amigurumi!

It’s time for the Monkey of the Month, and this month I’ve made an Easter Monkey Amigurumi!  What else would you think of for the month of April?  I was actually thinking of a rainy themed monkey, because “April showers bring May flowers” but Easter is just too cute to pass up!

easter-monkey-amigurumi

What makes this Easter Monkey Amigurumi, well, Easter-y, is the nest of eggs on its head.  The nest is just a small cap-like shape, and the eggs I crocheted out of that super thin yarn I got from Taiwan (the same yarn I used to make the baby whale amigurumis).  My sister and I trialed with so many different types of eggs before we settled with that nest of eggs!  We first tried a felt plushie egg, but despite stuffing it, it still didn’t quite look three dimensional enough to look like an egg.  Then we thought about crocheting a big egg with worsted weight yarn, but found it hard to make the Easter Monkey Amigurumi pose with such a large egg!  So, finally my sister suggested I crochet three small eggs and put them in a nest on the Easter Monkey Amigurumi’s head.  I was hesitant at first, because that’s a lot of work!!  It doesn’t look like it, because they’re so small, but it’s actually a lot of stitches…just to crochet some eggs…BUT it did work out the best, so I shouldn’t have been so lazy heh.

easter-monkey-amigurumi

easter-monkey-amigurumi

Can you guess what else makes this Easter Monkey Amigurumi so special??  You probably can’t tell from the pictures so far, but…

easter-monkey-amigurumi

TADA!  It stands!!  All on its own…awww…kinda like seeing your baby stand for the first time, huh?  Haha not quite, but something like that.

easter-monkey-amigurumi

As you can see, it relies solely on the garden wire stuffed in its tail to stand, which is amazing to me because this Easter Monkey Amigurumi sure is mighty plump!  I used my original pattern to crochet the body, and after I finished I realized that the body is way too big for a standing monkey.  Future note to self, if monkey is to stand, give it lipo…

easter-monkey-amigurumi

And, just for kicks, let’s make the Easter Monkey Amigurumi look like Godzilla!

easter-monkey-amigurumi

I told my sister to take nice pictures of the Easter Monkey Amigurumi for me because she usually takes really good pictures.  I was thinking white picket fence, grass, nice sky blue backdrop, some flowers…I got most of what I asked for, but somehow I also got small buildings that make the Easter Monkey Amigurumi look more like King Kong than a cute Easter-themed monkey…what can I say, she always likes to put her own little “cute but dangerous” twist on things <slaps forehead and rolls eyes>…

easter-monkey-amigurumi

easter-monkey-amigurumi

Although, after looking at them for a while, they are nice pictures after all.  As I say this, I just know she’s rolling her eyes at me too and thinking that I have “such common taste” with that all too familiar disgusted look on her face haha!

easter-monkey-amigurumi

Nice houses too.  The house on the left was a birthday present from my mom, and the one on the right was a souvenir from San Francisco.  So random that we have these things lying around the house!

The Easter Monkey Amigurumi is available for purchase at my Etsy.  That’s it for now!  Thanks for looking~!

easter-monkey-amigurumi

sheep-pair-amigurumi-2

Continuing on with the springy animals…today we bring you sheep amigurumi!  Not yetis.  -_-

We’ve waited a long time to get our hands on this expensive fuzzy yarn, so when our mom collected enough Joann coupons in the mail, we bought two squishy balls of fuzzy black and white yarn.  I love black and white!  You can never go wrong with it.  So I sat around and tossed the yarn from one hand to the other and thought “if I could juggle, I’d juggle these”.  Hahaha no.  What I really thought was “ah…soft, squishy, soft, squishy…sheep!”  And there you have it.  Black and white sheep amigurumi.

sheep-amigurumi-3

The semi-drooping ears and extra fluff on its head gives it the signature “sheep” look, right?  Well at least that’s what we were aiming for because without the ears sewn on, it really did look like a yeti.  I mean yetis are nice–with their cute faces and all–but nah, maybe next time!

sheep-amigurumi-2

Of course we can’t forget a fuzzy little tail to our sheep amigurumi!

sheep-amigurumi-1

Here’s the black sheep version

black-sheep-amigurumi-3

Now the black sheep amigurumi was pretty funny to make.  When I sewed on the ears, for some reason I just really liked to pinch the bottom ends of them inwards to make it pointy.  Why?  I don’t know…I just like to see sharp and edgy things…?  But anyway, I handed it back to the crochet master for her approval and she said, “WHAT?  Why is it that when I give things to you they always turn out sharp and scary looking?!”  And then she quickly molded them back into its cuter shape.  Yeah, the dark colors and the sharp ears without the round pink felt pieces in them really made it look…devilish. >]

black-sheep-amigurumi-2

black-sheep-amigurumi-1

But don’t worry, they’re happy little friends!  Cute, soft, and fuzzy!

sheep-pair-amigurumi-1

Thanks for looking~

Today, I would like to start a monthly tradition of “The Monkey of the Month” – and since I made a Valentine’s monkey for the month of February, I’m continuing with a St Patricks Day Monkey Amigurumi for the month of March!!

st-patricks-day-monkey-amigurumi

Actually, my real goal was to make a monkey of every color of the rainbow, just for the fun of it!  My sister was always nagging at me to make a green monkey too, for what reason I have no idea…so St Patricks Day came just in time for me to make a green monkey.  Of course, every proper leprechaun should wear a nice hat too, and I even decorated the hat with a nice gold buckle!  The buckle is actually just some small pieces of gold trimming I found lying around the house.

st-patricks-day-monkey-amigurumi

It’s so fun when you can make good use of random materials you find in your house that you never thought you’d end up using!  This happened before too when I made the R2D2 amigurumi.  All the silver trimmings and screws were cut from a silver wired ribbon roll we had bought so many years before.

st-patricks-day-monkey-amigurumi

Another example of my thriftiness with this St Patricks Day monkey amigurumi was the heaping pot of gold.  Doesn’t it look so shiny and plentiful…and also a lot like Mardi Gras?  Yes!  I coiled a string of Mardi Gras beads on the top of the pot of gold to make it look extra shiny!  I was pleased with it, but later became a little sad when all people would remark about my St Patricks Day monkey amigurumi was that darned pot of gold!!  “Oh, nice monkey – whoa, is that a pot of gold?!” was my most common critique.  All that hard work to make a nice St Patricks Day monkey amigurumi complete with a nice leprechaun hat and cute 4-leaf clover felt plushy…and all people see is the GOLD!

st-patricks-day-monkey-amigurumi

And of course, when I showed it to my dad, who is a die-hard Lakers fan, all he had to say was, “WHAT?!  Why did you make a Celtics monkey?!”  When I tried to explain it was for St Patricks Day and not associated with Boston or the Celtics, he said, “They’re the SAME THING!!” I felt like I had committed treason and was to be banished to another planet when all I did was crochet a harmless St Patricks Day monkey amigurumi…I swear if I left it somewhere with him, it’d probably disappear mysteriously <gulp>.

st-patricks-day-monkey-amigurumi-1

Hopefully, others will look past it and see that this monkey would just like to celebrate St Patricks Day happily!  This monkey is available for purchase at my Etsy. Thanks for looking!

I know it’s very late, but Happy Chinese New Year nonetheless, and to celebrate it I made a rabbit amigurumi for the year of the rabbit!

Here I made the rabbit amigurumi celebrate against a Chinese New Year-inspired backdrop.  The fancy decorations in the background are actually red envelopes, and to top it off I added a little Chinese chocolate gold nugget too.  May the new year bring much luck, happiness, and prosperity to us all!!

I think the most important part of this rabbit amigurumi is the shape of its ears.  I basically crocheted a test tube shape (please excuse the crude image comparison, lab geek talking here), pinched the bottom open end of it to create a concave shape, and sewed it in place onto the head.  I wanted to achieve a 3-D effect, rather than just a flat shape for the ears.  To finish off this rabbit amigurumi’s ears, I cut out a smaller test tube shape from pink felt, lined the inner ears with it and glued it in place.  Sounds pretty simple, but actually sewing the ears in place with that concave shape is kind of difficult, so if you’re ever going to do something similar, it may take a few tries but it’s so worth it!

Which reminds me, someone once asked me what kind of glue I use for my amigurumis.  The answer is Aleene’s tacky glue, which I buy from either Michaels or Joann’s, whichever store is having a sale or gives me a coupon.  The only reason I use it is that’s what was lying around the house at the time I started crafting.  It is definitely much better than using regular school glue, a mistake I once made when I used school glue to stick felt polka dots onto a mushroom amigurumi I made for a friend’s birthday, only to find that all the dots fell off within 2 hours (that, and my friend wasn’t exactly “gentle” with my handiwork either…)!  Just a little bit of tacky glue goes a long way too, because when you slather on a bunch onto a small piece of felt it soaks through to the other side of the felt and doesn’t stick very well because it’s so wet.  The felt piece also hardens as it dries with too much glue, and maintaining the softness of the felt is important for both visual and tactile purposes.  I’ve always wanted to try hot glue, but never got around to it.  If anyone has better suggestions, please share!

Ok, I’ll stop talking about glue now.  You’re probably thinking, “Gosh how much can someone talk to me about glue?!”  I know I can be pretty wordy, but I just wanted to share my experiences with glue with you. 

Back to the rabbit amigurumi…of course with Easter coming up and all, I couldn’t resist making this rabbit amigurumi an Easter rabbit too!

The eggs were cut from felt, stuffed and sewn together, and then decorated with some glittery glue.  My sister’s handiwork – she’s so good with small details.

Oh, and the tail was crocheted from Joann Sensations Beautiful Yarn.  It’s super soft, and so fuzzy – perfect for creating contrast with the worsted weight yarn I used for the body.  I know it sounds wrong, but I find myself pinching the tail a lot because it’s so soft!  Don’t worry, the rabbit hasn’t turned around to bite me yet so it’s all good.

Here’s a side view.  Notice how the ears are sewn on in a concave shape.

After I made this rabbit amigurumi, I liked it so much I decided to make another type of rabbit – a floppy-ear rabbit amigurumi!

The body and everything else is exactly the same as the other bunny.  The only difference is the ears.  The ears on the floppy ear rabbit amigurumi are huge!  If I were to ever make it again, I would definitely use a sport weight yarn instead of worsted weight yarn just for the ears.  But it’s ok, the floppy ear rabbit amigurumi still has a special place in my heart, even if other people think it looks like a dog!

And here the rabbits are very happy together.  All of a sudden, I can’t wait for spring to come!  If you’re interested, you can purchase a plush rabbit amigurumi of any color you’d like at my Etsy.

As always, thank you for looking!  Please stay tuned as I attempt to make all the animals of the Chinese zodiac!  So far, I have more than half done and will be posting them as time permits.  Oh, and one last bit of info – my monkey amigurumis were chosen for the 2012 Crochet Me Amigurumi Calendar!  The patterns for the monkeys, and also a pattern for a polar bear (fondly named Polar Lucibear) will be included in the calendar!  Thank you very much to all who have expressed interest in a pattern for the monkeys.  Please wait patiently with me for publication of the calendar to get your copy of the pattern!  I’ll be sure to update you on the calendar’s status.

With Valentine’s Day coming up, I became inspired to make a Valentines day monkey amigurumi!  This was the first time I ever tried making the monkey amigurumi another color besides brown and gray.  I was excited to see how just changing the color palette would affect the overall look, and it definitely made a big difference!

valentines day monkey amigurumi

Somehow it just looks extra sweet and tasty!  Or maybe I’m just craving some Valentine’s sweetheart candies right now…Either way, it still looks cute!  The eyes also seem to sparkle more, perhaps due to the whiteness of the felt behind it.

We also substituted the usual banana snack with a felt heart plush for the Valentine monkey amigurumi to snuggle.  It was pretty hard to convince the monkey to let go of the bananas, but she finally gave in when we promised her a whole bushel of bananas later.  Monkeys nowadays, really…

Here are some more pics:

valentines day monkey amigurumi

valentines day monkey amigurumi

valentines day monkey amigurumi

The chair in the background actually was a spontaneous add-in to the photo-shoot.  It was a chair my sister and I used to play with during our childhood days, and had lost into the oblivion of the crack against your bed and wall, you know that one right?   After all these years she just found it the day before we took the photos and it just so happened to have a heart shape to it too!  It must have been fate.  I think it really completes the look of the Valentine’s monkey amigurumi.

The Valentines day monkey amigurumi is available for purchase at my Etsy.  Happy Valentine’s Day! <3

I’d like to wish everyone a Happy 2011 New Year, and what better way to start the new year than with a splash from a cute baby whale amigurumi?!

baby-whale-amigurumi

My inspiration for these baby whale amigurumis was actually me wanting a new cell phone charm (because I am totally obsessed with cute cell phone charms…I have a billion of them but I just can’t get enough! Just like how a girl can never have too many dresses, a girl can never have too many cell phone charms! At least, that’s what I like to think…). That, and I couldn’t wait to make something out of these really really thin yarns and miniature crochet hook I bought from Taiwan last time I was there. I don’t even know the hook size of the crochet needle. All it says is “6” but it is very small, so I doubt that means 6 mm, maybe 6 micrometers haha yeah right!

Crocheting with this 6 nm hook was pretty tough. It’s really hard to see the stitches because they really are microscopic! It almost felt like I was crocheting sewing thread. Yet, the small scale was necessary to make a cell phone charm. Regular worsted weight yarn crocheted with even the smallest size crochet hook of 2 mm would give me a humongous cell phone charm. I may like cell phone charms, but I’m not crazy enough to lug around a whole chain of critters! I try to keep things low maintenance.

This is what I came up with:

baby-whale-amigurumi-cell-phone-charm

Then I started getting carried away about playing with colors and making couple charms!

baby-whale-amigurumi-couple

Back view:

baby-whale-amigurumi-back

Side view:

baby-whale-amigurumi-side

What a cute baby whale couple!  Chu~<3

Here’s a picture for size comparison:

baby-whale-amigurumi-size

After a hard day’s work of crocheting cute baby whale amigurumis, I picked up my Nintendo DS to play my usual bedtime games, and realized, “Hey!  I can use those charms for my DS too!”

baby-whale-amigurumi-ds-charm

Now, before I start sounding like an infomercial and claiming these baby whale amigurumis can be used as keychains, camera charms, purse charms, rearview mirror car charms (which they totally can!), and magic charms that can transform into a genie and grant you 4 wishes instead of 3 like those regular genies (which I’m pretty sure they can’t), I’ll stop.  Thanks for looking!

Since it’s Halloween today, I thought it’d be very appropriate for me to post one of our older creations…the mangy cat!  First, I drew up this…

janama crocheted the parts and I sewed them into this!

Don’t you think the hanging eyeball is the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in the world?!  If you hold it and shake it around a certain way, the eyeball spins around its epicenter like a helicopter blade!  Isn’t that cute?!  ;D

I saw roadkill on my way home one time, so that’s what inspired me to make this.  Happy Halloween!!

A couple years ago, when my mom was into making polymer clay crafts and I stole some and played with it for fun, I made these little monkeys with tails that held bananas on their heads, backs, in the air…almost anywhere! Thinking back to those and how cute they were, I thought why not make a monkey amigurumi too? So, that’s what I did. Except, this time around the monkeys are 5″ tall, whereas the polymer clay monkeys I made back then were a mere 1″ wide at the most!

So, here are my monkey amigurumi.

monkey amigurumi

hugging monkey amigurumi

I even gave the monkeys different poses and faces. For the brown monkey I used safety eyes and gave it a waving pose. The gray monkey has those cute happy squinting eyes so characteristic in anime characters. It also hugs instead of waves. Same pattern, but both monkey amigurumis have a unique look – that’s what I really like about them.

I even got a special order on them from my mom’s friend for her daughter’s birthday (her daughter was born in the year of the monkey). That was exciting! She wanted a plush brown version of the gray amigurumi monkey, and a small plush monkey amigurumi cell phone charm. Here are the finished products.

brown hugging monkey amigurumi

monkey amigurumi cell phone charm

That’s a Nintendo DS by the way, because we all know how much monkeys like to play with DSes…

I put up these monkey amigurumi plushes for purchase on my Etsy. If you order one, I can make it in any pose, face, and color you want to make it uniquely yours! Even the bananas can be placed anywhere on the monkey to give it an extra cute edge!

I also entered these monkeys in the Interweave Crochet Me 2012 Amigurumi calendar contest. Let’s hope they make it into the calendar! That would be super awesome!!

It’s that time of year again!!  My brother’s birthday…that’s what pretty much started it all for me.  First present included R2D2 and Waluigi.  Second present was Mario.  This year, it’s none other than…

BOWSER!!

I guess we’re on a Mario characters making spree.  Why Bowser of all the other characters?  Because other than Waluigi, my brother usually chooses Bowser to run us over when we play Mario Kart.  No, I’m not bitter at all!!  Not at all…

Making Bowser took a whole month!  Sounds long doesn’t it?  Just imagine all the planning and crocheting and felting and sewing that went into this!  One day I spent crocheting the jaw, mouth, and head.  A second day just crocheting the body and shell.  A third day on the legs.  A fourth day on the arms, tail, and horns.  A fifth day on the hair, and cutting out all the felt, and gluing it all on, and finally we were done!  Oh wait…that was actually only five working days huh…and what a very productive fifth day we had too!  I’ll confess that I wasn’t efficient, but I got discouraged during the process just looking at the pieces without a good vision of how the end-product would turn out.  If it weren’t for my sister nagging at me and guilt-tripping me to finish, this may have taken even longer. 

Anyway, enough of my whining.  Let’s see how Bowser evolved!

This was the beginning.  I basically made three small balls and sewed them up into this nose/mouth.  Then made a tube to connect to another ball, and that made up his upper jaw. 

Then I crocheted some more tubes and connected them together to make the lower jaw.  To fill up the empty space on the lower jaw I crocheted a small patch and sewed it on, then glued red felt over it.  I also glued some red felt to the top jaw and stuffed the empty space in his head. 

Here’s the finished head with some really sharp teeth!

Whoa and all of a sudden he has a body!  Sorry, I didn’t document much, but trust me, you aren’t missing out.  Seeing those stray pieces lying around was actually kind of depressing. 

Finally, when my sister put his eyes on he came to life!  And I was excited to finish him again!  I thought this part was funny because he looks angry.  I could totally imagine him saying, “Gah!  You better be putting on my horns right!  Or else!!  Raaaarrrgghgh!!”  Calm down Bowser!  You are in good hands.

Applying the finishing touches…

The finished product!!

Does it look like its original?

I think this is what Mario would see if he were standing right under Bowser.  Speaking of Mario…

Don’t they look so friendly!

Mario got away…too close for comfort I guess.  It’s okay, Bowser still has Boo!

Lakers!! 8D

For Father’s Day this year, we made a Lakers plush toy! Our dad LOVES the Lakers, so since the timing was perfect and all, we decided very last minute that this would be his Father’s Day gift.

Making the ball was annoying. It was turning into a giant pill. So we had to undo it and start all over again… Cutting the words was also very annoying because felt does not equal paper…

First we printed a big picture of the logo, cut out the words, and then traced the words with very dull scissors that used to be sharp and useful. I wanted to give up after cutting the L because the felt kept slipping everywhere and the thin part of the L was dangling like a wet noodle. It looked so ugly but I kept cutting, wondering “just how much uglier can this thing get”. But after cutting the rest of it, I realized that it didn’t look so bad after all!!! Thanks to my sister’s constant support throughout the cutting process! Now that I think about it, I was probably just throwing a hissy fit…over nothing. heh..