Christmas Cookie Ornament Giveaway!

It's been such a wonderful year for me, and to top it all off I'm looking forward to a truly fabulous holiday season (new job, finishing thesis, new opportunities, new friends)! So I thought it was only right for me to do a Christmas giveaway, to celebrate my wonderful year and my awesome berrysprite friends!

This year I'll be giving away a pair of my felt cookie ornaments... one light brown and one dark brown cookie for your holiday home :D The giveaway will run from Tuesday, Nov. 30 to Saturday, Dec. 4, and the winner will be announced on Sunday (Dec. 5) because I want to make sure the winner receives his/ her ornaments in time for Christmas! To enter the giveaway leave a comment on this post that describes one of your favorite things about any holiday(it doesn't have to be Christmas!). Although the winner will be selected by a random number generator (based on the number of your comment), it's fun to see what makes people happy, don't you think? For example, I love Christmas, and one thing that I love are all the Christmas lights (you know, bright shiny pretty things are my weakness).

Also, if you can't wait to see if you've won the ornaments, you can make some of your own! Try your hand at my felt cookie tutorial which I made last year... They are so fast and easy to make, and they look daaaarling when they are finished; perfect for a small gift or favor (or even for your own Christmas tree)!

Black Friday!

Here are some lovelies that will be in the sale! Enjoy!

From 10 am to 10 pm (Hawai`i time) on November 26, enter the code "blackfriday" during checkout to receive 15% off all items (not including shipping) in my store.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying their turkey/ tofurkey. I just had to share this little guy with you... It's been a long time since I made a new amigurumi design, and I had a custom request for an owl. I think he turned out really cute! He's got handpainted eyes and is made from fuzzy brown yarns, with a felt beak. I may tweak the proportions a bit in the future (to make him look more like a meatball owl!). Although there won't be any owls in the Black Friday sale update (so sorry!), I have now added owls to my repertoire, and you can expect to see more of them in the future!

PS, Modes4U.com is having a huge giveaway.... go enter to win cute stuff!

Black Friday sale!

Thanks so much for being so patient guys! I don't know if you know, but I got the job! I am now a research analyst just like a real grown up. I'm still not sure when I start, but it's soon, they just have to do background checks and stuff on me. Yayyy!


Anyway, I just wanted to announce that I will be having my first ever Black Friday sale (Nov. 26) It's to celebrate a lot of things... me getting a job, my 4 year shop anniversary, you guys being awesome, etc. Also, for anybody not familiar with the term, Black Friday refers to the biggest shopping day of the year, which is always right after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. Lot's of shops have sales on this day, and because etsy just rolled out a new coupon code system, I thought I should too!

From 10 am to 10 pm (Hawai`i time) on November 26, enter the code "blackfriday" during checkout to receive 15% off all items (not including shipping) in my store.

I have been working on a few amigurumi to add to my shop for the sale, including some cupcakes, a unicorn, two snowmen, a couple of bearpod cozies, a sushi set, and lots of Gingerbread ornaments; I'll set up these items on the day of the sale (sorry, no reserving), but I may add a few other things throughout the week. Hope to see you at the sale!

Craziness... but in a really good way :D

Okay, this is going to be one of the few posts on my blog without a picture. I'm sorry! I literally have not been able to pick up my camera to take pictures of all the goodies I'm working on; you may have noticed too that although my shop was only supposed to be closed until Nov. 2, it is still closed (and will probably remain closed through my four year etsy anniversary on Nov. 14... boo!) One reason is the same; I'm trying REALLY hard to finish up my thesis. The second reason is: I've also been applying to grown up jobs. It has literally been ten shades of crazy!

Anyway, I'm really stoked because it looks like there is a chance that I will have a bonafide grown-up job soon... we'll see how it goes. I applied to 4 different places doing history/research-e things and in the past week I've gotten 3 interview offers and one second interview offer (which I totally did not expect)! The thing is, some of these interviews require writing samples etc, so I'll probably be a little quiet on the blog front for a while... nothing like writing your thesis, writing writing samples and writing blog entries/working on the shop. Oh, also, I just wanted to say thanks so much for all the warm vibes you guys always send me through etsy, Facebook and of course here on my blog... it sure does help when you have people who are so positive for you even when you've never met them and they're so far away :D

PS... I send you guys good vibes too!

Holiday blog redesign

I hope you guys like the new blog design... it definitely has a holiday feel to it, although I daresay that I've skipped over a few of the big ones, including Thanksgiving (just like the shopping malls!) Isn't it weird how Christmas seems to come earlier every year? This year, though, I'm really looking forward to seeing all the Christmas decorations and hearing all the Christmas music; I'll be finishing up the rough draft of my thesis which will be one of the greatest presents to myself ever! When I was redesigning the blog, I kept the fact that I'm really early in the season in the back of my mind, and consequently I stayed away from using red and green as theme colors, and also stopped just short of including Christmas trees and presents in the design (though it was tempting!). I think the taupe/brown and maroon work well as colors, and you can never go wrong with kawaii cookies... overall I'm quite chuffed about it actually! I just hope you guys won't get tired of the redesign because it's early for Christmas :D Anyways, sending you all (early) wishes for a happy holiday season!

Embellishing your crochet with... crochet

Huzzah... I just recently started using a new crocheting skill when I'm making amigurumi (millions of swirly cupcakes, ahem) and I wanted to share it with you! Using this technique, you can create swirls and lines on your amigurumi, I've even done zigzags. Basically you'll be crocheting additional yarn onto crocheted pieces you've already made in order to embellish or decorate them. I'm not sure what this technique is called in real crocheting language (Making lines? Embroidering? I tried to look it up! Anyway, if you know please tell me!) (Psst... It's called "surface crochet"... thanks June!!!)


Actually, it's a really simple technique. To start, take your crochet needle and push it through your crocheted piece from the outside to the inside. Using the hook of your needle, pick up another piece of yarn (conveniently colored red in the pictures) and pull a loop through the piece from the inside to the outside. Repeat the process with the loop on your hook; you'll basically be pulling one loop into another to form a chain onto your crocheted piece. Try to place your hook/loops between your stitches... that way your loops will come out nice and smooth! Don't forget; you can skip stitches or even go perpendicular!


The above picture shows what this technique should look like on the inside of your crocheted piece, in case you're having trouble. I hope this technique will be useful to you guys!

November calendar is here!

I hope everyone had a nice Halloween, full of lots of candy and fun! Yay, November's calendar is here! It took me a little bit to make this one, mostly because the colors on my computer were fine but on other computers they turned extremely yellow. Visit my flickr or my photobucket to download for free, because I love you all :) To download, click on "all sizes" pick "original" and then save to your computer; from there, set it as your desktop background!

Here's the story: "Oscar and Scout decided to have their Thanksgiving feast of corn, carrots and peanut butter pumpkin pie inside where it's nice and cozy; it's getting a bit chilly out! " (PS. I have no idea what peanut butter pumpkin pie would taste like but it sounds like it would be good, right?)