jennyarts.com http://www.jennyarts.com Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:15:30 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Handmade Potpourri Dolls – Black Version http://www.jennyarts.com/2012/02/04/handmade-potpourri-dolls-black-version/ http://www.jennyarts.com/2012/02/04/handmade-potpourri-dolls-black-version/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:11:08 +0000 jenny http://www.jennyarts.com/?p=856 Handmade Potpourri Dolls – Black Version | Jenny Arts   For this one, I crocheted a small little black hat and glued on a few small crystals on it for some extra sparkle.  Doesn’t the red heart shaped crystal really stand out on the black?  I just love that little pop of color!

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I gave this next potpourri doll a nice light pink headscarf.  It used to be a bow of some sort.  Again, I don’t remember where it came from, but I’m glad that I hadn’t thrown it away yet!

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This one has a pink flower shaped crystal on the side.  I found this nice little pack of multicolored heart and flower shaped crystals at the craft store and figured I could use them here.  It’s a good accenting piece!

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Those crystals are so useful!  I stuck them everywhere~

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Finally got my hands on some black boa feathers!  The sachet underneath the black tulle is actually white.  Everything was so covered up in black that even I forgot that the sachet underneath was white!  It’s because the craft store I went to ran out of black colored ones, so I had to make do with whatever colors they had left.  I went there three times too!  And each time I went, they never had the color that I was looking for!  Either they’re not stocking up, or someone is always beating me to the punch!!

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I gave away all of these potpourri dolls to relatives as Chinese New Year gifts, so no more smelly craft corner!  As I was making these dolls, the smell was just getting stronger and stronger as I made more and more of them…honestly, it drove me a little nuts!  Ha ha :)

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Well, that’s all of it!  Hope you enjoyed looking at my potpourri dolls!!

Handmade Potpourri Dolls – Black Version | Jenny Arts

]]> Continuing on with my previous post, today I bring you some more of my handmade potpourri dolls!!

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This time I was going for the Chinese opera look.  You know, with lots of makeup and lots of things on their heads.  :)   This time I really had a good excuse to just go all out on decorating!

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The red and purple flowers in her hair are made from air dry clay.  In other words, children’s clay!!  Yay!  My daughter made a whole bunch of them and just left them sitting around collecting dust, so I figured she probably wouldn’t notice if I took a few of them heh heh…  But she caught on soon and made a big fuss about it.  So I told her, “…Just make more.  Oh and while you’re at it, go find me some smaller ones of these, they’re too big.”  She went grumbling off somewhere, but I got what I wanted.  Ha ha!  >]  Crazy girl, just make more!

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For my next handmade potpourri doll, I went with a simpler look.

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I really like the red and black color combination.  Something about the combination of the two just makes the colors pop against each other.  I also find myself wearing this color combo quite a bit too!

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The last of my colored handmade potpourri dolls…a Chinese New Year themed one!  Sort of.  :]

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I forget where I got the sachet from, but it really came in handy here!  Just look at it.  Doesn’t the sachet just look very…Chinese?  Well anyway that’s certainly what I thought of whenever I looked at it, so the end result became this Chinese potpourri doll!

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Thanks for reading/looking or whatever you’re doing on my site!  :D   I’ll be showing you the rest of my collection next time so stick around for some more of my handmade potpourri dolls!

Handmade Potpourri Dolls | Jenny Arts

]]> Anyone up for some nice smelling potpourri dolls?  I just made these a couple of days ago, so they’re freshly made and still smelly! :D

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Basically it’s just a small potpourri sachet topped off with a clay doll’s head that I decorated to my liking.  I just used a doll face mold, attached the molded clay face to a chopstick, and tied the sachet just below it.

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The skirt/dress portion is actually an extra piece of tulle that I added to make it look more like a dress than just a sachet of potpourri.

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What do you think?  Does this potpourri doll look like a bride to you?

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I was on a bridal spree as I was making these potpourri dolls!

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The hair is actually yarn.  I crocheted an extra little hairpiece for each doll since the doll face mold didn’t have any hair to begin with!  If I just painted on the hair, it would have looked very flat and almost balding!  So yarn was my solution to adding more volume and texture to the head.

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The pink flower at the neck is actually from a fake plant (again, something randomly sitting around the house).  At any rate, I just plucked the thing off the plant and stuffed it here!  Such a great use of my old and fake plant!

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The fun thing about making these potpourri dolls is you can style and dress them however you want and paint on makeup according to their look.  It’s a little like playing dress up through dolls!

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This one I made hanging.  You can see the potpourri sachet better in these pictures.  The hat is also made from polymer clay that I pressed onto a mold.  I just painted in the details and attached it onto the head.

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Well, that’s all for now.  I’ll keep you posted on the next few potpourri dolls so stay tuned!

Potpourri Dolls | Jenny Arts

]]> Was in the mood for some duck hunting, so this time I made duck amigurumi!
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No, I don’t really go duck hunting.  If I want to eat duck, then I’d just go buy it!  Anyway, on to some more duck amigurumi pictures?

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Crocheting this duck was actually very easy.  I was originally making a cat’s head (in my cat amigurumi post) and found that if I just sewed up the top ends of opening together, it can become a body for other animals!  It sounds a little confusing but it works!  Could you tell that the body of this duck was the same as the cat’s head in my previous post?

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I just added on a head, duck feet, beak, and ended up with this duck amigurumi!  Just the duck by itself without any embellishments was very plain, so I had to add a few accessories to liven things up.

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Big duck and small duck!

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Yes, that little tuft of hair is supposed to be there.  I was going for the more baby-like look with the extra tuft of hair on its head.

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I also made other duck amigurumis in different colors too!

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I guess you can say this is a more manly duck?  :)

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I just went to town making these duck amigurumi.  There’s so many things you can do with them and they’re really easy to make too.

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The bonnet was really fun to crochet too.  It’s like another blank canvas for me to decorate on!

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For this duck amigurumi, I added a little pink butterfly to match its pink bonnet.  The butterfly was something that I found lying around the house.  Yes, again something random I found in the house.  I just realized that I make myself sound like I have a lot of things in my house!  That’s not true though!  I clean everyday and keep things in their rightful places!

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I actually had more pictures of this last duck but accidentally deleted them!  Ha ha oops.  Next time when I take pictures, I’ll retake this one and show you more of its bonnet.  I spent so much time decorating it too!  I crocheted a bunch of little flowers and sewed them on too…  Next time, promise!  Well that’s it for today, hope you enjoyed my duck amigurumi!

 

Duck Amigurumi | Jenny Arts

]]> It’s time for some more amigurumis–like rabbit amigurumi!!

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Making these rabbits was quite easy!  They’re small so they don’t require much time to make or sew together.  Good on the eyes and good on the hands~.

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Instead of just having a plain black line as their eyes, I wanted them to have a more glamorous and ladylike look.  So I had my daughter cut some black felt into the shape of eyelashes and also some light blue felt eyeshadow to go with it.  It took a long time to cut out the eyelashes.  I wanted them to look nice, long, and luscious!

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Just the black eyelashes by themselves was a little boring and typical, so that’s why I added in the eyeshadow.

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I wanted some variety in my rabbit amigurumi so I made this one lying down instead of sitting straight up.  It’s much more sturdy than one that sits up.  For the one that’s sitting, I had to make sure that the legs and the tail were placed and sewed onto the proper areas so as to ensure maximum sturdiness/balance.  When you sew on the legs and the tail, you have to make sure you sew them on in tripod fashion.  Otherwise, it’ll just topple over onto its face. -_-

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How do my rabbit amigurumi look?  Do they make you feel nice, cozy, warm and fuzzy?  :)

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Okay, now it’s time for a change in scenery!

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Maybe I should have used this backdrop for the cat amigurumi that I made in the previous post.  Haha oh well, too late.  Too lazy to go back and retake pictures.  I just really wanted to find a way to use this background…

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…Rabbits and cats don’t really go well together do they?  Note to self: don’t use this background ever again!  It’s distracting! >(

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Ah…there we go, much better.  Well, that’s it for rabbit amigurumi!

Rabbit Amigurumi | Jenny Arts

]]> So instead of crocheting girl amigurumis, this time I decided to make cat amigurumi!

This is the view from the front:

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Making cat amigurumi was very easy.  I didn’t even bother crocheting ears for them!  All I did was crochet a sack-like head, stuffed it, and sewed up the tops of their heads into that particular shape.  The ends of it just twist up like that so making ears was not something I had to worry about.  Besides, from past experience, making huge ears for cats just never turns out the way I want it to.  They always end up looking really scary.  They become cat-bats!  Making the ears smaller is what really makes it look cuter, in my opinion.  Sometimes it’s just best not to make your amigurumi look too much like the real thing.  Sometimes it’s just better to simplify them so that they don’t look so scary…or just plain ugly!

And this is the view from the back:

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The pink plush heart was sewn by my daughter.  She cut the heart shape out of felt, stuffed it with regular stuffing, and sewed it shut.  Easy!

As for the tails on my cat amigurumi, I just stuffed in a bendable wire so that I could get that signature cat look with the whole curling tail thing.  When you look at a cat, they never move unnecessarily.  The only thing that moves as they’re sitting is their tails.  A little unsettling to see but hey, that’s what makes them smart…looking?

Hope you liked my cat amigurumi!

Cat Amigurumi | Jenny Arts

]]> It’s time for my last post on human amigurumi–dressy girl amigurumi!  There’s two!

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This time I was going for the formal look and this is how it turned out!

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And here are the side views:

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The polka dotted portion of her dress is actually a ribbon.  I sewed it together with chiffon trimming and came up with this dress.  Her pendant was something that I happened to find lying around the house again, so I decided to use it here.  Just the dress by itself was not impactful enough so the pendant came in real handy!  Now she looks like one fancy, dressy girl amigurumi.  Wonder where she’s going?  One ridiculously expensive and high-end restaurant?!

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The hair was the really fun part in making this girl amigurumi.  The lighting in this picture really captured what I had in mind as I was crocheting her.  I wanted the somewhat dark and mysterious look for her.  Yes, no one can fathom what really goes on in her mind…she’s untouchable…yeah, I like that :D .  But anyway, before I get carried away with my weird ideas, let’s move on to the next dressy girl amigurumi!

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Somehow she looks ready to break into a paso doble any second!  Haha or not~

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I can never stress enough just how useful those decorative adhesive gems were in making all my amigurumi.  I still have a whole bunch too.  I’m thinking of using the rest of it to make one very shiny and sparkly……….never mind can’t think of anything.  What would you cover with sparkly gemstones?

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And here we have the two dressy girl amigurumi together!

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I think out of all my girl amigurumi, I like these two the best.  Even though they don’t have a lot of embellishments on them the simplicity of their dresses is what I really like.  In the end, simple is best!

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Well that’s all for now!  Hope you enjoyed looking at my dressy girl amigurumi :) !!

Dressy Girl Amigurumi | Jenny Arts

]]> Anyone want to see a bejeweled girl amigurumi?  I do!  And here it is!

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This one took a very long time to decorate since I had to glue on every jewel strand onto her hat, her dress, and the ends of her skirt.  It took lots of patience, but it still came out nicely right?  :)

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For some reason when I look at her, I think she looks like a very fancy and decked out cowgirl.

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And then I start to think maybe I should have given her a small pistol to pose with!

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Look at her eyeing those pearls!  Our bejeweled girl amigurumi does love her jewels etc.  If I gave her a pistol then she’d start looking like a cowgirl thief!  That would have been fun to look at.  Too bad I forgot about my little phone charm pistol…it would have worked out nicely too!  I’m almost tempted to take another picture….

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Don’t worry, she’s not that bad of a person.  She loves jewelry but she knows not to steal it!  It’s so funny how at a certain angle, her face can look so scary and yet at another, (like the one above) can look so happy and harmless.  …Scary girl amigurumi indeed.

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And here is her closeup!  All nice and happy.  The dress came out better than I expected.  I didn’t think that the strands of jewels would stick on in such a nice curve but it did!

But of course I couldn’t forget that brilliant idea that flashed through my brain in the middle of this post…  This girl is a crazy one I tell you.  You’ll never know what kind of commotion she’ll be stirring up out of the middle of nowhere.  She looks happy and harmless but who knows what really goes on in that head of hers…  Look at that sinister smile…and pistol!!

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No…don’t worry, my bejeweled girl amigurumi is actually an undercover sheriff!

Bejeweled Girl Amigurumi | Jenny Arts

]]> This week I’m sharing my Laker girl amigurumi!  Let’s go Lakers!

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Even though they didn’t win last season, I’m going to continue being the loyal Lakers fan that I am and cheer them on until the very end.  My inspiration for this Laker girl amigurumi, well, obviously came from watching the Laker girls cheering from the sidelines at the games.  They look something like this!  Hopping in place with their fists in the air~

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The Lakers logo came from a cheering sign that they distributed out to people at the game.  All I did was just cut out the tiny logo from the corner of the poster and glued it in its appropriate place.  Of course my Laker girl amigurumi just wouldn’t look complete if I didn’t include a cap to go with it!

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And of course, when I think of things related to the Lakers, I also think of crystals and rhinestones…you know, the usual bling to go with their logo.  The crystals were actually part of a long chain of cell phone decoration sticker that I just cut and trimmed to fit onto her cap.  It adds just the right amount of detail don’t you think?

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As for the outer edges of the cap, I sewed in a single strand of yellow yarn in between the purple yarn stitches to give it some more visual interest.  To top it off, I also tied a nice little purple bow on each side of her braids.

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This is what the back looks like for those of you who were wondering.  :)

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Choosing the right background for this Laker girl amigurumi was quite challenging.  If you think about it, gold and purple is a very weird color combination.  You cannot match it to many other colors besides more purple and…gold.  At first I tried taking the picture with a black background but found that it really sucked the colors out of her dress and just made my amigurumi look dull and unlively.  So to fix the problem, I thought why not just use the Lakers towels (that I also got from a game) as the backdrop?!  Ah…being so cheap and eco with stuff lying around the house never felt so good.  :)

“Here’s to a fresh start to a new season” says my Laker girl amigurumi!

Laker Girl Amigurumi | Jenny Arts

]]> This week I’m sharing with you my two purse girl amigurumi!

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What girl doesn’t like purses?  I have a boat load of my own–each equally treasured.  When my kids were small, I used to crochet tiny miniature sized clothing and purses for their dolls to wear and accessorize with.  So I figured, why not just do the same for my girl doll amigurumi?

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As for the purse, I decided that it probably didn’t need too much decoration.  I went for the simple and clean look with the single red flower accent.  It also gives a more homey feel, right?  So to top it off, I also gave her a small bandana to wear on her head.

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This is the view from the top.  I cut the bandana from a real bandana that I found lying around the house.  It was actually this piece of fabric that inspired me to make this purse girl amigurumi.  It all started with the bandana and everything else just fell into place from there.  From the look of the bandana, the image of this kind of girl doll amigurumi popped into my head.

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This is the view from the side and back.  Wonder who she’s waving to?

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Ah, looks like she’s found her purse-loving friend!  So, this is my second purse girl amigurumi.

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This time I made her purse out of felt instead of yarn.  I just sewed the edges to give it the homey and crafty look I was going for and glued a tiny gem in the middle of it.  The strap of course is crocheted from yarn like the previous one.

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She waves too! :)

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What I really liked about this girl amigurumi was crocheting and decorating her hat.  I bought the polka dot ribbon years ago and had a bit left over, so here I was able to put it to use again!

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I just love to find random things about the house and putting them to good use.  You’ll never know just what interesting things you could do with them until you get your hands on them.  Who knew that a single piece of bandana fabric could produce forth a purse girl amigurumi :) ?

Purse Girl Amigurumi | Jenny Arts