Have a Happy Panda Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!! Thank you to all my lovely followers. Your likes and comments really support and inspire me. :) Have a great one!!

I'm making all the sides this year. We have a mix of American and Chinese dishes: green bean casserole, stir fried mushrooms, potato salad, and danko (white turnip) soup. We bought the turkey with sticky rice and a stir fried greens at a Chinese restaurant this year. I'm too scared to actually try to cook a turkey. hehe And 3 types of desserts: almond jello with fruit cocktail, red bean mochi bars, and apple turnovers. Yum!!!

Happy Birthday Panda!

Sorry it's been so quite lately. I've been really busy trying to get my life in order. Ya'll know how that goes. :) Well, my time should free up in a week or two and then there will be lots of fun stuff for my fans. :) Thanks for sticking with me. :)

Also...

It's my birthday today! I wish I could celebrate with you all this week but I'm too busy.  But I will be doing a birthday giveaway in a couple of weeks for my lovely supportive fans.  Please keep an eye out! 

Fun day with Monsters University and Friends!

Watched Monsters University 3D with my cousin and our new housemates Mike and Sulley the weekend it came out. :) I thought the movie was very cute and had a great moral story line. :) 

After dropping Mikey off at his new home with my cousin, Sulley and I went to hang out with other friends. We got yummy boba tea which Sulley helped me drink and ate hot pot. 

It was a very good day. :) And I wanted to thank Josephine from A Morning Cup of Jo Creations for the free baby Mike and Sulley pattern! You can find the Free pattern on her ravelry or craftsy account.

It's the Simple Pleasures in Life

My first try at marinated tea eggs...no one died yet hehe

My newest favorite soft 3 chocolate chip cookies! That's right, I used 3 diff chocolates. I cut up a bar of semisweet to get the chunks, added chocolate chips and mini chocolate chips. Next time, I will put them in a box for traveling, they are too soft and smoosh easily  They were a 4th of July hit! 

That's right...conqured IKEA today...sweated my butt off doing it but I did it! I put together these 2 drawer units that came in 10 boxes and a book case for my cousin in pasadena...All by myself!!! Yea! BooYa!

Other than that....I did nothing this 4 day weekend except eat, sleep, and watch tv. Sometimes, you need to just chill. :)

Some Non-Bunny Free Spring / Easter Amigurumi Patterns (part 1)

Here are some more Free Amigurumi Patterns for Spring or Easter! :)

Let's start with something small...Eggs!!!

From Little Yarn Friends, here are some Lil' Moustache Eggs. hehe I think they are adorable! (link)

From Petals to Picots, here are some Mini Easter Eggs. (link) Hmm...I wonder if they would fit into the larger plastic ones. hehe 

Tonna crochet a bunch of Easter Eggs and made them into a wreath. (Link) What a great idea! :)

And lastly, Repeat Crafter Me, made these really cute egg cozies. (link)  I really like how she did a rainbow of colors. I think they are just adorable! :)

<3 <3 <3

Now that you have your eggs, you need something to carry them in. :)

Here is a very cute crochet basket from Jam Made Studio. (link)

Enjoy! Easter Sunday is coming up soon!!!

Chinese Egg Tart Softie

When my friend, Rachel, visited me in California, I introduced her to my favorite Dim Sum restaurant and she got hooked on Chinese Egg Tarts.

 

Then she saw this cute feltie Egg Tart and fell in love. 

While she is really cute, I thought it was an involved pattern so I thought I would make something myself but with a combination of crochet and felt. Here is what I came up with.

Bottom

Side

For the crust I crochet a basic circle and then added ribbing to the sides.

Basic Circle:

R1: In a magic circle 6 sc (6)
R2: 2 sc in each sc around (12)
R3: 1 sc then inc (2 sc in next stitch), repeat around (18)

For the Ribbing, I used this pattern but I only did 4 chains to start and got 3 single crochet long ribbing. I left a long tail and wove through along the inside so that I could tighten it a little so that the sides would be more upright. (Sorry, no picture) 

Next came the center. I used yellow felt to cut out a circle shape and put on a face.

I then cut out a circle from the side of an empty tissue box and hot glued it to the bottom for more stability and shape. I stuffed it with poly fill and hot glued the felt face to the crochet crust. Where I had woven through and tighten up, there was a natural "shelf". This is where I put the glue. (Sorry again, no picture)

Before I had woven through and tighten up, the crochet part laid pretty flat and I really liked the look for a coaster. :)

I think my Egg Tart has such a good resemblance to the real thing that now I am craving some yummy egg tarts. hehe So, it's good bye till next time. Sadly, craft month is at an end but I hope you guys don't stop. :)

March Bunny Package

Here is a March package for my favorite bunny, Rachel.

Felt Peeps bunny and eggs decorated tote.

I bought this mini tote from the $1 section at Target. It is really cute and it was the perfect size to put in a couple of amigurumis. But it was too plain so I decided to decorate it with felt cutouts. Peeps bunnies and eggs were perfect. I might try to crochet this tote. It really is a good size. :)

Inside the tote I wrapped up these two amigurumis.

Cute little blue Steampunk Octopus as a surprise. :)

And the Onigiri girl to help Rachel and her friend sell cute stuff at MobiCon.

Here are a few packages still wrapped from the package that I thought was lost. The poor things have been hiding in my garage for a year or two. I don't think there are any candies in there but there might be something from Halloween. :p Once Rachel opens it, I will link her post so that you can see what was inside.

I think the purple package in the back is a magazine. It feels like one and sounds like one so it must be one. :p I got her the most recent Cross Stitcher as well. It has a cute koala card freebe so, I bought one for myself as well. :) This might get me into the cross stitch mood. :p

A giant stuffed bookworm for her other bookworm friends and some Chinese snacks. 2 more pineapple cakes and the little blue packets are crushed up ramen noodles with powder flavoring. We used to do it with the big packs of ramen noodles that you can buy in the grocery store but they decided to make it on purpose. :)

Inside this cute bunny jar labeled with a big "R" for Rabbit or Rachel is the following cross stitch key chain kits. I promised Rachel, these kits a long long time ago and am just finally getting around to it. :p

I hope she geeks out over everything. hehe
Love ya Bunny!

Healthy Dinner

I made this healthy dinner tonight. :)

Baked lemon and pepper trout using this recipe. It is paired with a romaine lettuce salad with walnuts and raspberry vinaigrette. For all those who know me, I don't do raw salads. For myself, I had a small amount of brown rice under the trout with a topping of saute mushrooms. :)

Hopefully this will be enough fuel so I can complete my current project and some earrings. :p

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. :)