Amigurumi Bear with Heart

Well I've been crocheting since I was about 6 years old.  In Belgium we had to learn to knit and crochet starting at a young age.  Some kids continue with it and others give up but pick it up again later in life.  I've never stopped!  The more I did it the more I wanted to learn every technique involving knitting and crocheting.  I actually crocheted my wedding dress.  I have to dig up a photo of it so I can share it here on my blog sometime.  For those of you who have never ventured past making clothes and/or accessories you should try Amigurumi, in other words crocheted little animals.  The first one I made got me hooked.  Now I'm a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to arts and crafts so when I made this little bear it really was suppose to be a cat!!  I know it doesn't look like a cat at all so as I continued with the pattern (which I hate doing as you might know) I decided to change it up and turn it into a bear.  I then proceeded to change the eyes on this three times!  I did what the pattern called for which was a bigger pair of round black beads but that just looked ridiculous for some reason.  My daughter said to add some fangs and it would have been a vampire thing ... because at that point it still didn't look like the cute little kitten in the book.  I finally decided to just do my own thing and make up some different ears.  At one point it could have turned into a lamb but it still didn't look right.  I removed the eyes, removed the pink nose and made it a black nose, took some buttons that were a lot smaller to the beads they suggested and with the right kind of ears she ended up looking like a little bear!  I almost gave up but sometimes you just have to do your own thing to make it work.  I've had projects like that laying around for months because I got frustrated with it, I then pick it back up and voila ... something new evolves out of whatever it was suppose to be.  

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/119159011/amigurumi-valentine-bear-crocheted-bear

 
If you have never tried Amigurumi you might want to check out this link which is a great tutorial for beginner Amigurumi, so check it out!

http://allaboutami.tumblr.com/post/8476868368/amigurumiforbeginners

I purchased some Amigurumi books here in the US as well as in Belgium.  The one shown here below is one I also have purchased here in the US and will be using for my next project.

Let's not forget about them in 2013

They all need our attention so let's be good to the animals in the new year!

2013 ... the year of the snake

Ahhhh, we found another theme for the New Year treasury challenge on Etsy!  I'm not a big fan of snakes but some of them are rather pretty.  Funny thing is that while we lived in Alice Springs, Australia we saw 1 itty bitty snake out in the Outback and it was a dead one! We did go out camping and digging for semi precious gems many many times and were always careful where we stepped and dug for gems.  The biggest one we saw was at the Reptile Center in town!  Then we moved back to Virginia and I saw 4 snakes in the first 2 months, how crazy is that.  Anyway, I thought this was a good theme for a treasury so here it is.

In 2013 ... follow your bliss!

That's really on my to-do list for 2013!  

Happy New Year Numbers!

I guess you can figure out what this is all about?

What's your New Year's resolution?

So I want to make a couple more treasuries for this challenge on one of the Etsy teams I'm on.  It has to be related to New Years so this one I made with food in mind.  So many people have dieting as one of their New Year resolutions.  I've never been on a diet but I try to always eat the right foods.  Growing up in Belgium I visited the Farmers Market every Thursday morning.  Most of the time I purchased a certain pastry which you can't find here in the US.  It's called cremekoek.  They are a square pastry consisting of a very light almost puff pastry type dough and is filled with a yellow custard.  You can get them with either powdered sugar on top or a layer of chocolate. Yummmmm!!  Now I'm craving one!!  My daughter fell in love with them as well so every time we're in Belgium we have to have our cremekoeken.  I have a recipe to make them but they never turn out tasting like the ones from Belgium.   Anyways, here is the treasury I made.  If you click on the different pictures it will take you to an individual shop which has even more cool stuff to offer then what you see here so check it out.  And no, I do not get paid for you clicking on the pictures of these treasuries.  Thanks for looking!

Going to the party!

Another New Years Treasury!