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Making this Chinese dragon amigurumi was like making a mini-Bowser.  I never really realized it before, but Chinese dragons have deer antlers – did YOU know that?  What do they need antlers for anyway?  I just crocheted small tubes and sewed one perpendicularly in the middle part of the other and attached the combined unit to the head.

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What I like best about this Chinese dragon amigurumi is the felt work.  My sister had to cut out so much felt for the dragon’s mane, eyebrows, and fins.

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The redness of the fins and mane make the dragon amigurumi look like it’s on fire!!  It looks pretty fierce thanks to my sister who likes to put her own scary spin on my cute amigurumis…making it’s eyebrows slanted so it looks like it’s frowning, and giving it fangs. It’s ok, for this dragon amigurumi, a little bit of scariness is just what it needs so I’ll let it go this time around.

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It almost reminds me of a dinosaur at this angle!

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Here it is posing with a Chinese girl amigurumi my mom crocheted.  For the whiskers, I just crocheted a chain and attached it to the sides of the snout.  Later, my mom sewed a golden thread into it too to give it some extra shine.

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I do have a pattern for this Chinese dragon amigurumi too, but just haven’t written it up yet.  It will be up soon for sale on my Etsy.  Please wait for it!

That’s it for our Chinese dragon amigurumi!  Hope everyone who celebrates it had a great Chinese new year, and we wish everyone a prosperous and healthy year!

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Isn’t he so dashing?  Looking so sharp with a tux  instead of the usual heart chest piece, sparkly black buttons, and a nice little bow tie too.  So fashion forward!  He even holds a romantic red rose in his paw, handcrafted by my sister polarbear of course.  This little vampire monkey amigurumi is sure to charm his way into all the lady’s hearts!  Don’t get too excited though ladies…rumor has it he’s dating the little Witch Monkey Amigurumi.  Sigh, she’s a lucky monkey, I know…

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This vampire monkey amigurumi was by far the fanciest monkey we’ve made so far.  The cape was actually handsewn together by my mom (because we all know how horrible I am at sewing).  It was such a nice coincidence that we had the perfect materials lying around too, like velvet and satin, to make the perfect cape.  The hat is exactly the same as the St Patrick’s Day monkey amigurumi and Fourth of July monkey amigurumi.

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Another part of this vampire monkey amigurumi that took a lot of work was the backdrop.  Polarbear spent days painting and drawing the background.  She even cut up some of the same black chiffon material used for the Witch monkey amigurumi’s cape to make into curtains.  Our idea was to make the vampire monkey amiguurmi look like he was in a mansion.  For me at least, when I think vampire I think mansion…and of course a coffin!

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Polarbear also spent a lot of time handcrafting all the roses on the coffin and on the floor.  She even used glitter glue to outline some nice gold lines on the coffin.  Very decadent-looking, just how I had envisioned it ahh.  The coffin was actually made out of styrofoam from an old egg carton.  It was painted black and then nicely decorated.  And for you nitpickers out there, yes we are aware the coffin is a little bit small.  He sleeps sideways…because he likes to!

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I just had to include this picture because he looks like he’s using his hand to flaunt his luxurious cape haha!

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Of course, no vampire is complete without some bloody fangs!  The fangs were cut out from white felt, then painted very meticulously with red nail polish.

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Teethy~!

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That wraps up our monkeys of the month for October!  I hope you’ve all enjoyed our Halloween monkey amigurumis as much as we’ve enjoyed creating them. We went a little crazy because it’s polarbear’s favorite time of the year.  She’s been dying to get dark and spooky with our cute amigurumis since forever!  I just enjoyed living vicariously through the monkey amigurumis because I want to dress up for Halloween but can’t…sniff sniff.

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Nevertheless, our Vampire Monkey Amigurumi wishes everyone a Happy Halloween!!

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We’ve been waiting many months for October to come.  Anything Halloween-themed is just so fun and exciting to do!  At first we only made one Halloween-themed monkey amigurumi, but then recently decided to make more.  Why not, right?  As for the other Halloween monkey amigurumis, we’ll keep you posted and up to date so stay tuned!

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When it came to making this witch monkey amigurumi, we were stumped on how to make the broom.  But then one day when we went to the craft store, we spotted a large wooden/straw broom hanging on a shelf with a lot of other Halloween related decorations.  So we went back home, gathered some small twigs from the backyard, cut a wooden chopstick in half, tied the little twigs around it, and there you have it!!  Broom!

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But anyway, enough about the broom.  For this witch monkey amigurumi we really wanted it to look like a witch–unmistakably like a witch.  So we used neon green felt for the face, chest, ears and purple yarn for the body.  Purple and green–the perfect witch colors right?

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This monkey is so fancy too!  It even has this nice little witch hat with a pretty little green bow tied around it.  Janama’s pretty bow-tying skills.    If you look closely, the cape isn’t just a regular cape.  I had to sit there and cut out tiny triangles from the edges of the cape so that it’d look more witch-like.

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Looks like our little witch has a minion–Skeletroll!  Witch monkey named it…not me.  :] I don’t come up with dumb names like that!

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What kind of monkey business are they up to?  For some reason the monkey looks a bit evil in the picture above…how cute!  We love cute but dangerous things~

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There’s much more to come!  Hope you enjoyed our Halloween witch monkey amigurumi!

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Here is our tropical island amigurumi!  Nice, happy coconut palm tree.

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Does it look better with a plumeria or an umbrella?

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Couldn’t make up my mind, so I posted both of them!  What do you think works better with the coconut palm tree?  No, what our tropical island amigurumi really needs is some friends!  Yes, animals..

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And maybe a wave friend too…

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And possibly some more…..coconuts?!

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The island is getting invaded with coconut friends!  Oh, how I would love for that to happen…think of all the pina coladas I could drink and all the coconut cakes…mmm…. No, I wouldn’t eat such a friendly looking coconut amigurumi!  Well maybe not, it’s their cute faces that really make you want to scarf them down.  Anyway, let’s get away from the subject of a crazy coconut eating frenzy and focus more on the waves. 

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Yes, this is a wave.  No matter how you look at it…it is a wave!  The top part is the bubbles that form on a wave as it comes crashing towards the shore.  He even arches over like a real wave too–although you can’t really see it that well from this angle.  Here you go…arch!

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Can you see how it arches a bit?  If I turned it any more sideways, then you wouldn’t be able to see his fierce expression.  Looking fierce!

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But anyway, another amigurumi I wanted to share…coconut amigurumi!

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Don’t they look so happy and inviting?  :>  As I was taking the pictures, I really wanted it to look like a coconut that you would see on a label on a bottle of lotion.  So I played around a bit with the positions and this is what I came up with..

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But now as I look back on these coconut amigurumi pictures…I feel like something’s missing…

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Ah, some greenery.

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Tropical Friends–like in one of my previous posts about Garden Friends! 

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Well that’s it for our tropical island and coconut amigurumi–hope you enjoyed it and had a good summer!

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Spent all of yesterday celebrating our brother’s birthday at the beach!  Was thinking about posting this sooner…but then he’d see it and our little birthday amigurumi surprise would be ruined!  Just like how he spoiled his own birthday surprise a few years ago when he spotted our R2D2 amigurumi with his crazy hawk eye for anything Star Wars…but this time we were successful!!  :d

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Rock Lee is from Naruto, a ninja anime that’s been going on for many many years now.  He’s supposed to bear a resemblance to Bruce Lee in both looks and fighting style.  Making this Rock Lee amigurumi was very hard!  Sure, he looks pretty plain and easy to make, but those bulging eyes, thick brows, eyelashes, and hair were a big pain to cut and make!  Especially since it comes straight out of an anime where everything is drawn so that the characters look the same everyday.

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Cutting his hair was a lot of work too.  I used up a lot of black felt and trimmed away quite a bit as well.  At first, his bangs were too long and were covering up too much of his thick, luscious eyebrows so I had to trim them a bit so that he’d look less girly and more like the charmingly ugly Rock Lee that he’s supposed to be.  At one point, I felt like his personal hairdresser!  And then at another point, as I was wrapping his arm bandages, I felt like a nurse!  This was one high maintenance Rock Lee amigurumi!!

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I even tied it in the signature Naruto style!

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The lines on his leg warmers were drawn on with a sharpie…so yeah, that took a very very long time to do.  Same goes for the little leaf.  I had to draw that a couple of times before I finally got one that I was satisfied with.

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Oh and by the way, today’s background is our brother’s painting that he did a long time ago at school.  We figured that the usual girly polka dot backgrounds would not mix well with this character, so we thought why not use something masculine looking that the birthday boy drew himself?!  Doesn’t it look nice?   Very nice and fitting for a Rock Lee amigurumi right?

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This tiger amigurumi is supposed to go along with the Chinese zodiac theme, but it seems like we’ll be doing the animals out of order and depending on our mood.  I mean who can resist a tiger in the middle of the rabbit year?  If we seriously decided to post the animal of the year in order and in a timely fashion then you’d have to stay tuned for another eleven years!!  Yep, crazy indeed.  But if you’d like to stick around for that long then you are more than welcome to! 

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So here is the side view of our tiger amigurumi…nice and round from all the rabbits he ate.  Ha ha, no tigers eat better things… like human food!

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Mmm…junk food.  I just realized, the only thing here that has meat in it is the piddly little meat patty in the hamburger.  Apparently our tiger amigurumi has been feasting on other things…like rabbits!  Such a ravenous appetite!

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The stripes were cut out of felt and glued onto the body.  It was a painstaking process but it turned out looking like a tiger right?  The tiger’s facial hair is also cut out from felt.  Its weird enough that a tiger would need facial hair to look like one, but without it it just doesn’t look right.  Without the hair, I’m pretty sure a lot of people would start thinking it was a Garfield cat of some sort.  Either that or people would probably think it was some kind of striped dog-cat-bear.  Yeah…we don’t want you to think that.  Do you see the importance of facial hair?!  Somehow I think it makes it look wiser…if not, old and seasoned.  :]

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Thanks for looking at our little hairy, unshaven, but wise-looking tiger amigurumi!

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.

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!

At first, the nose was also made of felt. Then, my bro said his face looked too flat, so I carefully scratched off the felt, cut a hole in the face, inserted the animal nose, unstuffed the head to fasten the nose, and restuffed it. So much work just to make his face look less flat, and I’m not even sure if it looks any more contoured!

As always, the intricate felt work was done by my sis. She also helped sculpt his scruffy white beard, which I made by attaching small strings of yarn to the head, like real hair! She’s also a great hair stylist by the way – she trims my bangs all the time! We both agree that the head is the best attribute of this Hobbes. It was unfortunate I didn’t know how to make his hands have fingers, because I think it’s an important part of Hobbes that makes him “alive.” Then again, my goal was not to be so ambitious…or else this would also go into my pile of failures!!

When my friend got around to opening our present for her, I was nervous. What if she complains that it’s not from her wish list? What if she thinks it belongs in the Pile of Failures too? What if she’s totally unimpressed, after all the hard work my sister and I put into it? Our worries were put to rest when she gleefully exclaimed, “OMG!” She really looked surprised and happy. Then, when I saw her cuddle with it, I knew all that hard work was well worth it. Hobbes, you did good!!

Look!  He even has a cute little tail!  Sorry, I really like the tail hehe…

And the most amazing thing about him is, he STANDS!  Like, on his own!  It only took the work of 4 washers in each foot, but, whatever works right?!  Although he is a little bottom-heavy, he definitely is my most stable ami thus far, which really makes him “stand” out…to me at least.

Oh yeah, and that’s a champagne glass he’s holding.  I really had no idea how to make a thin cylindrical shape, so all I could come up with was to wrap yarn around some yarn a bajillion number of times.  Quite primitive, I agree, but I really had no other way…unless someone would be so kind to share a better method?  It would be much appreciated!

Of course, Brian just wouldn’t be Brian without Stewie!!  I was really excited after finishing Brian to have a Stewie to go along with him.  Unfortunately, Stewie is a totally different species.  It really didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked it.  So, despite my hard work trying to embroider his strange face and do all the other little bits, Stewie was a complete and utter failure!!  He ended up being just as tall as Brian, which is totally not what he should be.  It’s so embarrassing, I refuse to take a picture of them together!  So here is Stewie, all by his lonesome self:

Who knew Stewie would be so difficult.  Oh well, you really can’t win all the battles.  Sorry, Stewie, you’re exiled to my “pile of failures.” 

Moving along, my next project was to make another white cartoon dog.  Can you guess which one??  I’ll fill you in on this one next time!  Here’s a small pic to keep you interested!