One of my new year's resolutions was to start crocheting for charity. Well cut to 6 months later and I finally did it. I found this charity called Snuggles Project and decided this was the one. I love animals, have worked with them for many years of my life and have 4 cats of my own. When I worked in a vet's office I remember the cats and dogs had these rough, bleached one too many times towels to lay on in their cages. If they didn't have a towel the cats would lay in their litter boxes. So sad! This replaces those towels with something comfier. I crocheted these snuggles without a pattern. I just chained enough to reach 15", 18" or 24" and then HDC across until all sides were the same length to make a square. If you have yarn scraps that you know you won't use this is a good way to make a homeless animal happy, clear out your stash and put your yarn to a good use!


Left: dog snuggles, right: cat snuggles

I plan on making more with the rest of my stash and I have a feeling I will be unwinding a lot of thrift store sweaters this holiday season for even more.

I bought a 12" x 12" pillow form for a project that totally did not work out (let's just say I am not a seamstress at all) so I wanted to crochet a pillow case for it. I googled envelope pillow tutorials and crocheted a simple rectangle with single crochets big enough to make the envelope pillow case. It looked pretty bland being just a solid color so I decided to try cross stitching on the pillow. I've never done this before but I like the result!

My cat Bee likes to knead everything I that crochet so I decided to make her a bed with my scraps from other projects. I had made a blanket for a baby girl recently so I had pink and purple leftover. I also threw in some black. The other side of the bed is white and dark purple, scraps from a hat & scarf set that I made as a Christmas gift.

I totally made this bed up in my head and then pieced it together as I went. Every crochet pattern I have found for a cat bed is just a crochet circle with no fluff for the cat to lay on. I wanted something filled with stuffing.  I started off by making this Simple Round Pillow almost to a T but I only did 11 rows because I ran out of yarn, and at the last step I sc'd the 2 pieces together right sides facing outwards so that I would have a ridge of stitches going around where the pillow was joined and I could attach the other part of the bed to this. I also just stuffed the pillow with polyfill instead of using a pillow form like the pattern suggests. To make the sides I did this:

Ch 120. Sc in each across, ch 2, turn. Hdc in ea across for however many rows you want depending how tall you want the sides of the bed to be. I did 16 rows of hdc, half in black and half in dark purple. I folded this scarf-like piece of fabric in half, sewed up the long edge, stuffed as much as I could with polyfill, then sewed the 2 ends together to make 1 big donut looking piece. Then I sewed this onto the ridges I created when sc'ing the 2 pieces of the Simple Round Pillow together.




Bee loves it and when one side gets full of fur I can flip it over to show the other side. This bed was a great way to use up my scraps but I would really like to make a nice solid color bed with this pattern in the future. I think it would look a lot neater and more like a store bought bed in just 1 color. Red heart cheap yarn for the win! Wal-mart here I come!

I bought a bunch of cotton yarn when it was on sale at Michael's and I've been trying to use it all up in the best ways I can. I made plenty of potholders, facial scrubbies and market bags but then this idea struck. I wanted to make a hanging plant holder so I looked all over for a pattern. I tried a couple out but they did not fit my pot so I made my own pattern up as I went. I basically just made a circle the size of the bottom of the pot and then v-stitched around, widening it towards the top. I used waxed linen string and a wooden ring for the top and now my strawberry plant won't be terrorized by the cats! I still would like to make a prettier pattern but this works for now.

I made one too! It's a lot of work but it was worth it. It's been going for over a year now.

I am really in the Valentine's day spirit this year for some reason so I already got started on a few projects to give to my boyfriend come the 14th. This is the first thing that I finished but I will be posting a 52 reasons card deck and a home made card as well. I got this idea from a cross stitch that I saw online somewhere. I suck at cross stitching so I decided to try it out with perler beads since I have A TON of them. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to use the idea!

The amigurumi bear and bunny are from the book Amigurumi World but the caterpillar was made up by me as I went. All the hats are made from this pattern and then I improvised the ears. The booties are from this pattern.
 
Caterpillar (or love bug as I like to say ) set




Bunny set




Polar bear set

It is really hard to get this bag to photograph well but here it is. I love it and use it all the time. I went with crocheted handles after looking at the posts around Craftster and admiring them so much. I don't like purses that I can't throw over my shoulder so the wood or plastic handles were not an option. It is lined with black fabric and is made out of Caron Simply Soft Eco in the color called Ocean:




The button is a big silvery vintage button and I just crocheted an easy strap to go across the top of the bag to keep it shut.

The phone case was inspired by the beads on the front of the flower. I found that charm on the way to the pool yesterday and thought the color would look awesome with my ocean blue bag.

I made this cake for my boyfriend's 30th birthday. He loves lego and collects Star Wars lego sets so I stole a couple of his storm troopers and the lord of the sith himself to help me make this cake for him:




Thanks to this tutorial for marshmallow fondant!

Thats my favorite one too I really want to stencil the forsaken crest on a shirt for myself but it looks so difficult.. how cool would it be though?!?!