holiday (tiny) shop update!

Feel­ing a bit inspired and moti­vat­ed after vis­it­ing the One of a Kind show last week­end, I made some last minute update to my kind of dor­mant Etsy shop :D

I list­ed a very small quan­ti­ty of items at friends-and-fam­i­ly prices in order to find them good homes, I only have one of each at this time.

There’s San­ta’s Favourite milk and cook­ie orna­ment pack

photo-2016-11-27-9-55-08-pm

This very fes­tive tiny wreath with mush­room and bell (the bell DOES ring!)…

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And a few pairs of tiny sushi ear­rings. There are 3 dif­fer­ent sushi com­bo sets, you can see the oth­er sets in the list­ing.

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To make sure the the orders will arrive before Decem­ber 25, please place orders before Dec. 10 for Canada/US des­ti­na­tions and before Dec. 1 (that’s in 2 days!) for inter­na­tion­al destinations.

Have a look at the gen­uine mud­pie shop if you’re look­ing for some hand­made tiny plush to spread hol­i­day cheers!

Wish­ing every­one an excel­lent rest of the week!

 

other fun things

I’ve been only post­ing about the 12 Days of Wood­land Crea­tures for the past month! But you know me, that would­n’t be the only project I’ve been work­ing on — here are some of the oth­er fun things that have been keep­ing my hands busy :D

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About a month ago I made a cou­ple of stool cov­ers for my awe­some friends as a wed­ding gift, fol­low­ing this pat­tern by We are Knit­ters. Yes! The loop stitch! It’s just so fun to make! But after mak­ing hun­dreds, pos­si­bly thou­sands of loop stitch­es to make the 2 cov­ers I think I will give it a rest for now… I think the cov­ers will also make nice padding for reg­u­lar chairs or extra floor seatings!

I also made these very cute (and very easy! Instant plush!) knit square rab­bits fol­low­ing this pat­ter from Lebenslustiger, for my niece and nephews to cel­e­brate the arrival of the new baby broth­er :D

square rabbits

They have white pom poms for tails.

square rabbits 2

One day I went out to gath­er the last few dan­de­lion­s and filled a few small bot­tles with the seeds.

wishes

As you can see I’ve attached a head pin to the cork — they turned into neck­laces and are now in my friend’s shop, amongst oth­er things…

new shopThat’s right! I’ve joined my friend Jes­si­ca’s shop again this month :D It’s a shop in down­town Toron­to that rents out spaces to local artists/artisans. Please vis­it if you’re in the neigh­bour­hood :D You might rec­og­nize some of the pins that I made ear­li­er (see bet­ter pic­tures of them in this post) for an out­door craft show (which was unfor­tu­nate­ly can­celled due to bad weath­er), and the hedge­hogs and owls!

AND! As you may have noticed on the right side­bar of this blog I’ve also reopened my Etsy shop. I took a break from both the phys­i­cal shop and the Etsy shop last year because of a very packed sched­ule of school and work. But since I’ve grad­u­at­ed (yay!) I’ve got more time on my hands :D

So one item I recent­ly list­ed — and I’m quite proud of it — is the BYOBLT stack­able mag­net set!

BYOBLTMike designed the pack­ag­ing for it — isn’t it so pro­fes­sion­al-look­ing? Here it is in action!

BYOBLT (2)

And because the bacon was a lot of fun to make, I made a few smil­ing bacon mag­nets for the phys­i­cal shop as well (plus some very fes­tive can­dy corns for the sea­son!). Maybe I will list them on Etsy too.

bacon

I have def­i­nite­ly been enjoy­ing more time to craft and be creative!

Wish­ing you a won­der­ful Fri­day and weekend!

 

a long overdue shop update!

Spent the past week cro­chet­ing and sewing, and final­ly a shop update! :D I haven’t been putting a lot of effort into the Etsy shop, to be hon­est, but my friend has just opened a phys­i­cal shop down­town and I real­ly want­ed to make some stuff for her, so I thought I’d put some new stuff in my shop as well :D

 

I had this idea in my head for a long time, a grassy brooch with flow­ers on it, but could­n’t fig­ure out what I should use to make the flow­ers, what kind of flow­ers I want to make, etc. It final­ly all came togeth­er when the weath­er was get­ting warm and the dan­de­lions start­ed bloom­ing, and I was remind­ed of the back­yard in my fam­i­ly’s first home in Cana­da. It was in North­ern Ontario and we had wild ros­es and, of course, dan­de­lions in the yard. We’ve nev­er had a yard or gar­den in Hong Kong, so this was quite new to us. We plant­ed oth­er things too, like pan­sies. But the wild ros­es and dan­de­lions, they’re the ones that came back spring after spring with­out water­ing, tena­cious­ly, per­sis­tent­ly, care-free.

So! The spring gar­den brooch is in the shop! :D

 

 

I also made an oval one.

 

The brooches were a lot of fun to make. I’m hop­ing to make more soon, maybe with dif­fer­ent flowers.

And here’s snow mush­room’s cousin, spring mush­room! :D

 

Spring mush­rooms like sun­bathing and pic­nick­ing on sun­ny days and falling asleep to the sound of the rain. He has shiny sequins on his cap. 

 

There’s also anoth­er cousin of snow mush­room, the snowflake mush­room. She will be liv­ing in my friend’s shop.

 

Snowflake mush­room has snowflakes on her cap.

 

The orig­i­nal snow mush­room is still avail­able at the shop :D

And here are the ones I’m bring­ing to my friend’s shop — the teacup mushrooms!

It’s also an idea that I’ve been think­ing about for a while. The grassy bit is a lid, so one could put things in the teacup, like can­dy, loose change, a rock col­lec­tion, love notes…

Here’s anoth­er one…

 

When I was at the thrift store I saw these glass­ware and I thought these would be just per­fect for the snow mush­rooms! So I had to make them too.

 

They have spark­ly beads on their caps :D

 

The teacup and glass­ware mush­rooms are only at my friend’s shop for now, but I’d be hap­py to mak­ing them on com­mis­sion :D

 

It was a bliss­ful week cro­chet­ing, drink­ing tea and watch­ing Gil Gris­som solve crimes…

The mush­rooms and I wish you a love­ly week­end! :D 

 

 

 

shop revisited

I have plush in my shop again! :D Since I had to list a cus­tom order I re-list­ed the orna­ments as well. 

There’s a s’more… he’s in stock.

 

And snow mushrooms… 

 

The snow mush­rooms in the pic­ture have been sold, so they are made to order, and will like­ly look like this one…

 

With the rib­bon loop instead of jute. And has gills under its cap! :D (the old ones did­n’t have gills.)

 

Drop by for a vis­it if you have a minute! :D

 

 

toppers at work! :D

Yay! Cus­tomer photos!

The snow mush­rooms were a cus­tom order from a love­ly bride, to serve as cake top­pers at her wed­ding, and one of the wed­ding guests kind­ly for­ward­ed some pho­tos to me (thank you so much!).

Here they are stand­ing on top of the love­ly cake, so very hap­py to be able to help cel­e­brate this beau­ti­ful event…

Cheers, to the new­ly-weds! :D

toppers!

Yay for cus­tom orders! :D

 

You may have noticed that my mush­room friends have appeared on the Etsy badge over on the right side­bar- they’re a cus­tom order for a very cre­ative bride-to-be :D And they’re going to be cake top­pers, along with oth­er cre­ations that the bride is going to make! I can’t wait to see what the fin­ished cake top­per (and the cake!) looks like :D

They may look plushy, but they’re actu­al­ly pret­ty hardcore.

Well, that’s what a mush­room’s got­ta do when it’s going to be on its feet (foot?) all day! Yes, inside the mush­room stems are screws, and wash­ers at the bot­tom, so that they could stand on their own with­out tip­ping over.

I also added gills…

 

And one mush­room has spark­ly sequins atop its head…

 

I love cus­tom orders. I love hear­ing the sto­ries behind the orders and I feel so hon­oured that my plush friends can be part of the sto­ry. And I’m just so excit­ed that the snow mush­rooms are going to be a part of a wed­ding! The orig­i­nal snow mush­rooms appear on snow days to spread hol­i­day cheers. I’ve asked these spe­cial top­per mush­rooms to spread wed­ding cheers and well wish­es at the recep­tion; I think they will do a good job :D

If you have some­thing in mind that I may be able to make for you, feel free to vis­it my shop or con­tact me, I’d love to chat!

Have a love­ly Wednesday!

March break fun with tater tots

It’s March Break! Time for car­toons in the AM, all-day craft exper­i­ments, and lun­cheons with hot dogs and tater tots! Actu­al­ly, my mom nev­er bought us tater tots, and I don’t real­ly eat them a lot as an adult. But I think there’s just some­thing real­ly cute and fun­ny about tater tots. Well, the fact that they’re called tater tots. And they’re short and round. And who can for­get their 2 min­utes of fame in Napoleon Dyna­mite? Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many tots had per­ished in the mak­ing of the film. So! I thought I’d make a tot that one can safe­ly car­ry in one’s pock­et :D

It’s designed with a flat bot­tom too, so it does­n’t always need to be car­ried around — it can stand on its own like an inde­pen­dent lit­tle tot, on a desk or coun­ter­top or whatever.

If you, too, would like to make a tot to car­ry around in your pock­et, here’s what I did.

I used:
A bit of worsted weight yarn in yel­low
3.5mm cro­chet hook
Stuff­ing (I used yarn ends)
Two small black beads for eyes
Embroi­dery thread and nee­dle for mouth 

Edit 08/29/11: Row 1 is to achieve an oval base by work­ing sc’s into both sides of the begin­ning ch. Apolo­gies for not being very clear before, I added new process pho­tos after a few inquiries specif­i­cal­ly regard­ing this step, hope it helps!

Row 1: ch 5, 3 sc in 2nd ch from hook, 1 sc in each of next [2 ch], 3 sc in next ch, 1 sc in the remain­ing loop of each of the next 2 ch (the under­side of the same [2 ch], indi­cat­ed by the arrows in the pic­ture below).

Com­plete row with sl st in the first sc of round.

Com­plet­ed row 1 (an oval base):

Row 2: ch 1, in back loop only, sc in 1st sc, sc in each sc around, sl st in begin­ning sc. (10 sc)

Row 3: ch 1, sc in each sc around, sl st in begin­ning sc. (10 sc)

Row 4 — 5: Repeat row 3 (add or omit rows here to make taller or short­er tots)

Sew on eyes and mouth. Stuff with stuffing.

Row 6: ch 1, 2 sc tog 5 times, sl st in begin­ning sc, leav­ing a 6″ tail, tie off.

Weave tail around each sc in the open­ing, pull tight and tie off. Weave in end.

And here we have it, a tater tot! Almost as quick and easy as mak­ing the edi­ble kind. And of course, I had to make more than one…

All lined up!

 

Cir­cle time with Mrs. Clip (who also works part-time as a chip clip around here).

 

So what else can we do with the tots, except car­ry­ing them around in our pockets?

Well, one could prac­tice juggling…

 

Or play tater-tot-toss (and say that ten times fast!)…

 

Or play hot taters with a friend or two…

 

And when you’re busy with oth­er things, they can hang out on the fridge (on the frozen sec­tion, of course). Just put a safe­ty pin on it and stick it on a magnet.

 

And they nev­er go stale! So in a mon­th’s time just add some wings and they can dou­ble as chicks for an East­er display.

 

What am I going to do with all the tots? Well, I’m afraid I have more plush than I have room for them. So if you like the tots but don’t know how to cro­chet or don’t have time to cro­chet, I’ve put three in the shop, they’d love for you to visit!

And I would like to thank Mike for spend­ing the whole after­noon help­ing me with the pho­to­shoot and putting up with my sil­ly deter­mi­na­tion to take the per­fect toss­ing pic­tures. Love you!

And I’d like to thank you for drop­ping by! I real­ize that many of us don’t have the lux­u­ry of March Break but I hope you enjoyed tak­ing a break and vis­it­ing with the tater tots here!

new things, and news :D

I’ve start­ed some new projects that involve try­ing new things. One of these new things is knit­ting. It’s not that I’ve nev­er knit­ted before. On the con­trary, in my teenage years I’ve knit­ted sweaters with colour­work and cables and lace pat­terns. But some­where along the way I’ve put down knit­ting and spent all my time cro­chet­ing instead, and I’m sur­prised how much I’ve for­got­ten, how for­eign knit­ting has become to me. It feels like I need to relearn every­thing from the start.

I was look­ing for a cardi­gan pat­tern and tried sev­er­al cro­chet ones but end­ed up frog­ging all of them. I had been eying the Every­body Knows cardi­gan (so named because “every­body who can knit knows how to knit garter stitch”.) from Knit­ty for a few years now. I real­ly like the sim­plic­i­ty and the shape of it, and when I think about mak­ing a new cardi­gan that’s the cardi­gan I want to wear, oth­er cro­chet pat­terns just would­n’t do.

So I start­ed the project this week, it’s com­ing along slow­ly. Because I don’t usu­al­ly knit I don’t have a col­lec­tion of nee­dles like I have with hooks. The nee­dles I’m using were giv­en to me by some­one who no longer want­ed them. I’m not even sure what size they are, but they seem to match (size, not colour) and work well with the Shet­land Chunky I’m using. Actu­al­ly, the dif­fer­ent colour nee­dles help me fig­ure out the right side/wrong side. It just feels a lot slow­er than cro­chet­ing, but I’m deter­mined to com­plete it, hope­ful­ly in time for ear­ly spring.

Anoth­er new thing I’ve start­ed try­ing and learn­ing is play­ing the ukulele. I bought a rather inex­pen­sive (i.e. toy-grade) one yes­ter­day with the help of my broth­er-in-law, who knows a lot about music (thanks Dan!). I did­n’t want to invest too much in it because I’ve nev­er been very musi­cal and I don’t know whether I can keep it up, but I’d like to try any­way. Appar­ent­ly kinder­garten chil­dren learn ukulele at school nowa­days, so if a 4 year-old can do it, I should be able to do it too! I found a use­ful tool to tune it last night, and tried to learn a few chords. I don’t have a very good sense of rhythm, so I’m hav­ing trou­ble with the strum­ming, but I hope to get bet­ter with practice.

And for the year of the rab­bit I’m read­ing a new book, Water­ship Down by Richard Adams.

I’m still try­ing to get into the sto­ry, but it’s inter­est­ing so far. I love that it’s based on car ride sto­ries — tales that the author has made up and impro­vised and told to his chil­dren dur­ing long or short car rides.

And final­ly, some good news! A sale came through my Etsy shop today! Hur­ray! I’ve had a cou­ple of cus­tom orders through friends since the shop opened, but this is the first order that actu­al­ly came through the shop itself, from some­one I don’t know! So I sent the Chi­nese Greens on their way today to their new home, along with lots of bub­ble wrap in case of a bumpy ride and an origa­mi bird note­card for a sweet note that the Greens were asked to pass on.

Safe trav­els, my friends!

It’s a bit sad to see them go, but know­ing that they can make some­one else smile makes me happy.

The shop has been slow, and I have con­tem­plat­ed clos­ing it down, actu­al­ly. Hon­est­ly I haven’t real­ly done a lot to pro­mote it because, after all, I do enjoy shar­ing free pat­terns a lot more than try­ing to sell peo­ple things. But the first sale is a great encour­age­ment, and I will con­tin­ue to work on some ideas, and hope­ful­ly stock the shop with new things soon! :D

Thank you for vis­it­ing! Have a love­ly day!

Alphafood!

 

So! The cus­tom order I have been work­ing on ear­li­er this month has gone to its new home, so I can final­ly show you what they are! :D I’ll share some of our favourites here, but you can also see the full set on flickr.

Yes, it’s a full set of alpha­bet fridge mag­nets with cro­chet food items. Each mag­net stands 1 — 1.5 inch­es tall (the bunch o’grapes is the only one who is too tall for its kind, but the rest accept­ed him anyway). Mike came up with the catchy team name “alphafood” :D

Try­ing to fig­ure out how to incor­po­rate the let­ters took a bit of exper­i­ment­ing. At first I tried to cro­chet the let­ters, which looked alright…

But then when I got to “B” I had a hard time stop­ping it from mor­ph­ing into an “8”. So I tried cut­ting the let­ters out from felt. I did­n’t think it would work so well because none of my small scis­sors are super sharp, but between my one pair of large but sharp fab­ric scis­sors and my small dull scis­sors it actu­al­ly worked out real­ly well with all the let­ters. And then I just tacked them on with fab­ric glue and secured them with some stitches.

See? Much bet­ter :D

There’s some­thing about cut­ting let­ters out by hand that I find real­ly sooth­ing. I do that a lot with paper, and I’m hap­py to know that it works with felt too. Some of my favourites are the banana…

… and the strawberry.

The radish is Mike’s favourite.

And this is where the give peas a chance pat­tern comes from.

It was fun to come up with food items that are not too obscure and would trans­late well in cro­chet at the same time. While work­ing on them we had some friends over and they seemed real­ly excit­ed about guess­ing what some food items were. I did­n’t expect it could turn into such a fun guess­ing game…

Every­one took a while to fig­ure out this one.

V is for veg­etable soup!

One per­son got this one right away, I was pret­ty impressed!

U is for ugli fruit!

I thought peo­ple would have trou­ble with this one, but they guessed it right away.

Q is for que­sadil­la! (topped with a Q‑shaped dol­lop of sour cream! :D)

Anoth­er proud mem­ber of the Mex­i­can cui­sine that peo­ple took a while to guess. (It did­n’t help when I tried to give a hint by telling the rid­dle: “what do you call cheese that does­n’t belong to you?”)

N is for nacho! (a tri­an­gu­lar nacho chip, dipped in bits of sal­sa and nacho cheese! :D)

Besides Xigua, which is Chi­nese for water­mel­on, I could­n’t find a food that starts with the let­ter “X”, and water­mel­on has already signed up to rep­re­sent let­ter “W”. I found a forum where peo­ple were dis­cussing food items that start with spe­cif­ic let­ters for writ­ing a chil­dren’s alpha­bet book, and some­one sug­gest­ed the Her­shey’s Kiss for “X”. I thought it was a fine idea.

 

I hope the alphafoods will make it fun to learn the alpha­bets for the lit­tle boy who’s get­ting them! :D

Meet every­one on the alphafood team on Flickr! :D

Feel free to drop me a note through my Etsy shop or send me an email at genuinemudpie[at]gmail[dot]com if you want to chat about cus­tom orders!

Have a sweet week­end everyone!

home!

Our plane arrived at sun­set yes­ter­day. Mike had win­dow seat and we mar­veled at the blaz­ing clouds and city lights as we land­ed. It was such a gift. What a won­der­ful con­clu­sion to our amaz­ing trip! :D

I will be upload­ing more trip pho­tos to Flickr this week, will keep you posted!

Also, my shop has reopened! :D Order before Dec.6 (ready-to-ship plush) or Dec.4 (cus­tom order plush) for Christ­mas delivery!

Have a won­der­ful week! :D