Quick Crochet Flower Coaster

I've been drinking a lot of ice water lately to cool down. The only problem is that the condensation creates that water ring on whatever it touches. I don't want my wood to get damaged and I don't want my crafting supplies to get wet. Solution, crochet a coaster. :)

Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice

Hook: 6 mm

Pattern: Springtime Coasters by Whiskers & Wool
I did not chain 3 to move up to the next round. I did a fake double crochet. I will post the tutorial later. I really like this fake out because there's no seam which is nicer.

It works well and the best part is that it fits all sizes of mugs and cups. :)
If you want it really water proof though, I would glue a round piece of cork to the underside.

I hope you all had a very nice weekend! 

Quick Crochet Flower

I have all of these flower crochet patterns to try out so I can find my favorite to put on these cute little baby girl hats. Here is one of the first. :)

Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice

Hook: 5mm
(I don't know how I'll go back to small hooks and tight stitches for the ami...hehe)

Pattern: Crochet Flowers from Skip to My Lou

I used the same yarn and hook size. I did not change the pattern at all. O.o

Except, after finishing the flower, I didn't like it. No offense.

There were too many holes you could see so, I didn't want to put it on something.

As I was tucking in the ends, I realized that it would fit a tea light perfectly.

Viola!!! It is re-purposed as a tea light holder. :) And I really like it. hehe
Of course I will be using battery operated tea lights for safety. :p

Panda's Tip of the Day:
I guess this is more for me than you but it is always nice when I remember to crochet in my ends instead of having to sew them all in at the end. :)

Purple Flower n Grey Crochet Pacifier Pouch

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft
Hook: 5mm
Pearlized Button, 2 Black Buttons

I used the same free pattern as in my first Pacifier Pouch post. 

Flower Pattern: From Nichole's Embellish It! Senior Challenge Post

I had a hard time with Step six, so what I did was go down the opening of the small petal and up the center of the flower to draw up the yarn.

So Darling don't you think?! :)

Granny Stitch Preemie Baby Hat

My latest baby hat for the Solider's Angels California Baby Shower.

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft
in Orchid and Grey Heather
Hook: 4.25mm

Base Hat Pattern: Granny Stitch Sun Hat by My Merry Messy Life
The pattern is for a 3-6 month old baby so I adjusted the pattern down to fit a newborn.

Round 1: stop at 9 hdc instead of 11
Work the rest of the pattern as stated

Round 2: ends with 18 hdc total

Round 3: ends with 24 hdc total

Note: when I changed to the grey color on the Granny Square Stitch part, I actually turned and stitched the other way. It was the only way to get the stitched into the right spaces. :)

I ended up with a hat that measures:
Circumference: 11in
Height: 4in

The pattern states to fasten off and join for each color change but I didn't want to weave in all those ends so I carried the yarn along the back. I don't think it looks too bad so I'm sticking to it.

Because this hat came out so small and is for a newborn, I didn't want to do a big floppy brim.
Instead I crochet on this easy Shell Edging pattern.
Round 1: 1 sc into each st and ch around
Round 2: 1 sc *skip 2 sc, 7 dc into next sc, skip 2 sc, 1 sc into the next sc*
repeat around

The hat is cute but needs a little embellishment so I crochet this Teeny Tiny Flower and added a grey button in the center because the flower gets lost a little without it.

Finished and so cute!!! I need to make more boy baby hats now so stay tuned. :p

Update:

Sara from My Merry Messy Life honored me by asking me to link this post onto her Link Party, so I did. :) Please check it out. :) She has lots of very cute patterns. :)

She is so sweet...she also featured this post on her Sunday Fan Tribute Post! I hope you guys go check it out! :)

So Lazy...

I was too lazy to clean up my beading work area and I wanted to be productive so I just pulled out some yarn and a crochet hook. I always have to clean up my beading space before I can work on anything or there would be too much stuff in my way. So, here are the fun, fast, and easy little cuties I made and the links to the patterns so you can make them too. :)

My usual Rose

 If you follow my blog at all then you have seen this same rose made with lots of different yarn. I just wanted to see how it would look with this color changing yarn. I doubt I would make enough to do a wall installation but I think it would be cute to make like 10-20 and frame them so it is like a 3D art piece. 

Here are a few mini-hearts that were quick and easy an so so cute! Sorry, I didn't take a pic to show the size but they are the size of my thumb and I have small hands. Above is my first heart so it is not perfect. I fix the huge hole in the middle, I took the tail and crochet over the tail when going around the ring which allows me to pull on the tail and close the hole when I am finished. (Panda's Tip of the Day!) :)

I started to make these hearts in pairs as long as the color matches so that I can make them into earrings for all my lovely single ladies on Singles Awareness Day. :p

Mandy's favorite 5-petal flower pattern (it is actually not my favorite hehe). It is cute and I forgot that I have made it before with a bamboo yarn. But I like the flower bellow a little better.

5 petal daisy

This is also from Little Birdie Secrets's blog as was the mini-heart and the other flower. This is her daisy pattern and I think it is adorable what she has made this for. She made this flower to adorn a beanie but the really cute twist is that the flower is interchangeable. :) You should go to her blog and check out all her cute projects. She has a lot of cute free patterns and patterns for sale.

6 petal daisy

I made this one with the same 5 petal daisy pattern but with an extra petal. I did the extra petal to balance out the color change from the yarn. :) I really like how the petals are more defined.

Yes, I do have to weave in the ends to all of these, which I will do as soon as I post this post. hehe
And I will post pics of how I finished these when I do. :P

~~Have a nice, productive, and restful MLK weekend!~~

Presents for a Beautiful Thailand Princess

My friend went to visit his fiance in the Philippines. So, I made him bring some presents for her from me. :) He is her Xmas present. hehe Sorry, but this will be a long post.

This is the bag that everything fit in. It is about the size of a piece of paper and 2 inches thick. It took almost 1/2 of his suitcase. Luckily, he is a guy and so didn't need to bring too much clothes with him and he is a super packer from years of experience in the Army. hehe The bag is from the dollar section of Michael's but is a very sturdy and cute little tote. I am sure she will find other uses for it. :)

She loves chocolates and her favorite brand is Ritter Sport. We have it here in Target so I got her some of those. Since she likes whole hazelnuts, I thought she would like to try Ferrero Rocher if she has not tried it before. The bear was just way too cute. :) It is made my Lindt. I love their chocolates with the smooth centers but I like the square ones not the round ones. Sadly, they stopped selling the square ones. These Belgian Chocolate thins are yummy. They have a little crunch to them and are thin enough so that you can eat 1-3 and it will satisfy a craving well enough. :)

On her Xmas list, she asked for creme eyeshadow. I did not know how hard it was to find and get over here. I mainly found creme eye liner but these were nice so I got some for her. I think Clinique had some eyeshadow creme pens but they were hard for me to use. I hope these work well for her. :)

These little bundles contain some cute hair clips. :) They needed to be wrapped simply so that they can fit into the tote bag or else I could not get everything in there. :)

Rose hair clips I crochet for her. Red, because it's one of her fav colors and blue because her working uniform is blue. Can you see the sparkilies? :)

Ribbon hair clip in her favorite colors, red and yellow. :)

The backs of the hair clips.

Queen Anne Lace Scarf finished!

And here is how I wrapped it. :)

Made a tube out of card stock. I was going to put it into an empty food container but I think it would make it harder to get it though the metal detectors in the airport.

I made rosettes from the wrapping paper I used to wrap the cylinder. These will close off the cylinder at both ends.

Then I accordion folded the scarf into the cylinder.

I added the rosette to the other end and tied it together with curling ribbon.

And that's it. It's a little hard to work with but it is really cute. I think of it as anther version of the Christmas cracker. The ends are a bit different because I had to fit it into the tote. :)

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Here are the last two gifts I made for her and put into the package. :)

Pink Side

3D beaded Cross Bookmark.

Red Side

Yep, it is double sided.:) I think you can see the lobster claw clasp. That will allow her to take the cross off the bookmark and use it as a pendant for a necklace.

Lastly, I made this bell bracelet. It was a last minute bout of inspiration. :) I had to figure out how to put bells onto a bracelet but I didn't want to do the old charm bracelet method or stringing them on because that would take too many. So, I wove a simple base and added the bells as adornments. I was going to use a blue base because that is the 3rd color in the triangle on the color wheel but I wasn't feeling it.

I added the cluster of bells in the center because I miss counted the spaces. hehe but I like it! Some times covering up a mistake makes it more special. :)

I hope my friends are having a great Xmas together! I miss them both and hope someday we can all celebrate the holiday together in person. :)

I hope all of you are having a great December filled with friends and family, lots of laughter and love, and plenty of crafting! :)

Note: I made and wrapped all of these in the first week of December but I have to wait till after she opens up her gifts to post this. :)

Pumpkin Spice Scarf

I finished my friend's Xmas scarf a few days ago but just got around to taking the pictures during the day. 

I added roses to the bottoms of this scarf too. This time, because of the width of the scarf, I made the bigger crochet roses. I added a pin back but I think I am going to change to a hair clip so that the roses can be worn in the hair or maybe I will leave the pin back so that the rose can be used to keep the scarf closed.

Rose 1

Rose 2

Finished scarf in all it's glory. I hope she likes it.