Angry Birds Sugar Cookies

Oh. My. Word. This took forever, pretty much an entire week, but it was definitely totally worth it for the final result.  My brother and sister-in-law are having a baby and it's due in July.  We had a baby shower yesterday and the theme of the shower was Angry Birds, though the guests of honour were unaware of this.

Anyway, in the blog I posted yesterday I showed an angry birds lovey and promised you a blog about some sweet treats.  I have been brainstorming how to make this project come alive ever since my mother told me the date of the baby shower and let me know that the theme was Angry Birds.  I really like decorating cookies, or at least, I like the idea and I like the result.  The actual execution is rather tedious and drawn out, but that is to be expected.

I would have loved to have gotten some actual Angry Birds cookie cutters, though not the ones that make all the indents like the ones I saw when I searched Google.  I wanted just the metal, simple shape cookie cutters, but, alas, I could not find any links that actually panned out and so, I had to deal.  I ended up using my phone to trace the pictures of the birds and pig I wanted to use and then used a photocopier to blow up the image to the size I figured I would make the cookies. It didn't really matter that I completed that second part, because in the end, I cut them all out by hand.

I used a circle cookie cutter and then just added extra bumps or appendages where needed for the red bird, black bird, and the pig.  I used a small tupperware container to cut circles for the blue birds and I used a heart and a mini stocking to create the general shape for the yellow bird.  They ended up working out pretty well, though the black bird was kind of annoying as the head feather kept falling off because it was such a small attachment point, and then I burned the first batch of black bird cookies.(I was vacuuming and didn't hear the buzzer go off!)

Once I had all the cookies made, I had to ice them.  I still have about ten containers of royal icing in my refrigerator because of all the colours that were required to make the decorations complete. I think I ended up spreading the decorating out over three days.  I did some of the bottom layer of decorating on the red birds and then did the bottom layers on the rest the next day before I had to leave to stay with some of my cousin's teens while the rest of the family went to see an older child graduate. The ones that stayed home had to write exams unfortunately.

The next afternoon, so Friday, I finally put the finishing touches on the cookies and had the final product done and ready to be taken to the baby shower and enjoyed. They really enjoyed the cookies at the shower and my brother and sister-in-law received some wonderful gifts to help them with their first child, so all in all, it was a grand success!

Photo credit: my wonderful mother!

Angry Birds Baby Lovey

It's hard to believe I haven't posted anything since September of 2014. I promise you that it's not because I haven't made anything, because I certainly have. It's also not because I was super busy, or at least not always super busy. I did end up becoming an honourary auntie to a sweet little boy in November.  I also found out I was going to be getting a sister-in-law and then it became official two days after Christmas. I also had quite a crazy work schedule for a while due to some unexpected issues arising at the end of December and early January. But, I really haven't got a legitimate excuse.

Here are some pictures of some of the projects I have done over my nine months of silence:

A sweater that I was asked to knit by a client at the office where I work. She has twin granddaughters and she wanted them to have matching sweaters, though different colours. The other twin was getting a green one. I was super proud of this project because it's the largest project that I have ever actually completed. I am notorious for starting a really large project and then giving up halfway through. Fortunately, this project wasn't for fun, so it actually got completed.

Owlby! This name has actually only recently been acquired by this sweet little amigurumi. When I originally crocheted him, the pattern was titled Mr. Murasaki, which, if I recall correctly, means Mr. Purple. The reason we call him Owlby now is that when turned upside down, he looks a bit like a Ferby:

So, while playing a life size version of Angry Birds in our apartment living room with my amigurumi creations and some stuffed toys, cardboard boxes, plastic bins, and a TV table, Owlby was christened.

This is Owlby's older sister, but she hasn't officially got a name yet. She was also a participant in the Angry Birds game. We were celebrating the graduation of two of my roommate's friends and the Wii died, so we rigged up our own game.

Multicoloured cupcakes! We had a lunch with friends and it was a potluck type deal, so one of my friends and I made cupcakes with multicoloured batter! They were super fun.

This is a second giraffe baby lovey for a friend of my honourary nephew. This one didn't have arms, which wasn't deliberate, but ended up being a good thing because now they can tell which giraffe belongs to which child if they happen to both have them around at the same time. Don't worry, it's only squished because it was all packaged up in a ziploc bag to be mailed to the recipient.

These two were made because of my obsession with owls, in case you hadn't picked up on that just yet. The white one is made from yarn, the tan one from hemp cord. The eyes and beaks are wooden beads and I made the branches they're perched on from polymer clay. The white one was my first attempt and I had no chain available so I just braided more of the yarn to create the actual necklace.

Anyone a fan of The Doctor? Personally, I've never watched single episode, but my brother is a fan and so is one of my friends(well, at least one, that I know of). This project is actually still sitting almost complete, not because I just couldn't finish it, but because I wasn't overly impressed with the top of it and I messed up on the lettering.

This one was actually super easy. I even made the buttons out of polymer clay.

TBT! To that time when I had long hair! About three weeks ago...although, I made the slouchy more than three weeks ago. I absolutely love this colour and the hat turned out great!

So, there's another client at the office where I work who saw these on some news channel. Some grade five kids out in Western Canada were making these and selling them to raise money for veterans. Anyway, she decided she must have some and so, I have been, am, and will be busy making lots of these sweet little poppies, though the centres will be black from this point forward.

Photo by: my roommate Becca

And finally, we come to the project that I actually mentioned in the title. This guy is from a pattern by Nerdigurumi and instead of just leaving him as a plush toy, I decided that he would be a lovey. 

Photo by: my roommate Becca

I really love how this turned out, especially with the ecru and red border on the blanket. It's another gift, this time for a niece/nephew of my very own, no 'honourary' about it!

Anyway, I will be posting another blog shortly, this one about a sweet treat I made to go with the lovey for the baby shower today.

Owl pincushion

So, I saw a really cute owl cell phone pouch last year sometime and bought the materials I would need to make it. However, I never got around to putting it together.

I started a new project the other day. A sewing project. It's a little frustrating because I don't have a sewing machine at my disposal, so I have to hand sew my projects. 

Anyway, I had pinned the pattern pieces together and had begun to sew, but I was getting frustrated putting the pins back in the little container I bought them in. I'm a little bit of a perfectionist and was getting frustrated that the pins weren't all facing the same way - I know, ridiculous - so I decided I needed a pincushion. So, instead of a cell phone case, I put together a cute owl pincushion with the felt and some of the polyfill I had left from the giraffe lovey.

Hand sewing, again...yay!(This wasn't so bad due to the small size of the project.) 

I learned how to close up a stuffed project using the ladder stitch to make it practically invisible, and I ended up with a cute little owl for my pins.

Giraffe Baby Lovey

This giraffe baby lovey was pieced together from several different patterns because I didn't have the money to waste on a pattern when I could create my own without too much hassle.  

I wanted to get it to look as much like http://www.etsy.com/listing/105085770/giraffe-lovey-crochet-pattern-instant as possible. I used the pattern from http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/baby-giraffe-amigurumi to do my head and snout. I adapted the horns, ears, and arms from http://ilovebuttonsbyemma.blogspot.ca/2013/01/crochet-giraffe-pattern.html and then made a granny square blanket and edged it with a 2dc, ch, 2dc cluster.

I love how it turned out!