Festive February: Cute Wintery Cards

I needed to make a couple of extra cards for friends in December, and they ended up embracing the season! The first was for a lover of penguins. I love creating the shapes of penguins, they're so pleasing! I used some black glitter card, and left the bottom of the card uncovered to be snow - I love this effect. The "Birthday Wishes" stamp took the Christmassy edge off, just!

For the other card, I delved into my stash of old stamping extras - leftovers from years of previous projects - and found this lovely cuddly polar bear. I mounted him in the same way with the snow in relief. Wish upon a Christmas star...

Festive February: Cross Stitch Penguin Decorations

I wanted to stitch a little penguin decoration for a dear friend of mine for Christmas, and went to Google to find a pattern. Well, I didn't quite find a pattern, but I found this, an image of a completed cross stitch, which just happened to be simple enough to use as a pattern! Very useful :)

I ended up falling in love with these little dudes, and so made one for our tree too!

Made on plastic canvas they came together quite quickly, and I attached a ribbon and a felt backing using my glue gun. I really need to get more plastic canvas in time for next Christmas, I'm always finding last minute projects for it!

Felt Penguin in Rudolph Disguise [Free Pattern!]

I wanted a little extra something to slip in a Christmas present for a friend who loves penguins, and designed this decoration - a penguin dressed as Rudolph (obviously!), complete with antlers and a bright red nose.

If you want to make one, cut two bodies out of black felt, a round tummy out of white felt, a small nose out of red felt (or you could made a yellow triangle for a beak), four antlers from brown felt and a pair of feet from yellow felt. (The feet are optional, but help anchor the design as a penguin and not a confused reindeer!) Stitch the tummy and nose on to the front body piece, and embroider some eyes. Stitch down the centre of each pair of antlers to hold them together, and then stitch the two body pieces together inserting the feet, antlers and a small piece of hanging ribbon as you go. Get the template below, and let me know if you have any questions :)

Crochet Penguin

So, when I shared my Crochet Robin back in November, I mentioned that I had already used All About Ami's pattern as it was originally intended, for a penguin! This little penguin has waddled off to his new home now, so I thought I would share him :) He is rather cute!

His scarf is detachable, his eyes are made with felt, and he has a little tag for delivery!

Here, you can see my robin and penguin together. I followed the pattern the same for both of them (although I think I adjusted the tummy slightly on both too). I used the same size hook. And I thought I used double knitting wool for both - the purple definitely is. The brown however, came out of my Mum's stash without a label - I'm suspecting it might be 4 ply given the size difference, or can double knitting wool (and my tension?!) really vary this much?!

Christmas 1 || Crochet Robin

I originally used this pattern by All About Ami for it's intended purpose (which I will share soon!), but on completion thought it was the perfect shape for a robin, and the perfect season too! I don't think my brown wool was double knitting, as he came out smaller than expected, but I think he will sit nicely in the branches of the Christmas tree!

Crocheted Mug Cosies

Hello :)

Two of the secret Christmas presents I crocheted (back in November!) were mug cosies. I was inspired by quite a few posts I'd seen round the internet, but loosely based the pattern off this.

The first one was worked in two different pink DK wools...

and finished with a white button...

and two white crocheted stars, worked rather finely!

The second was a penguin version! Worked in chunky black wool, and with a velcro closing this time.

With features added in felt!