Christmas Finger Puppet Set

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It is time for a little bit of Christmas in July! Every year I have so many ideas for things I want to make for Christmas, home decor, ornaments, gifts I want to make. And every year I get a fraction of it actually done. It seems like there is never enough time to get it all done, unless you get an early start, like in July. 

Snowman Hand Puppet

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Today I am sharing a project as part of the Christmas in July Make Along with Underground Crafter. Every day through the month of July a new project will be shared to kick off your holiday crafting and get you an early start on gifts for this year. There will be crochet, knitting, and sewing projects with a different theme each week. 

Pets Finger Puppet Playset

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 How is it possible that it is already June? This year feels like it is absolutely flying by. Summer break is here, yesterday and today are my kids last days of school. It seems crazy that the year is almost half over. But with another year comes another Team Creative Crafts collaboration and this month the theme is pets/animals. 

Smiling Sun Ribbon Tag Baby Toy

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Today I am joining Underground Crafter and Hooked for Life to share a baby sewing pattern as part of their year long 2021 Baby Sew Along. Each month, on the second Thursday of the month, they share a new sewing or quilting pattern for baby, and if you participate in the sew along you can win prizes at the end of the year. And today it is my turn to join in the fun. 

Loopy Yarn Doll Blankets

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Loop yarn, or finger knit yarn, where the yarn has preformed loops has been around for a while now and pretty much every yarn brand has their own version (or sometimes several different versions). It is really easy to use, easy enough that it is a great option for kids who want to try their hand at making something with yarn.

Fat Quarter Doll Quilt

Today I am participating a year long sew along with 11 other bloggers. This is actually my second project as part of this sew along, my first was a simple scrunchies tutorial that I shared earlier this year. You can find all of the details for the sew along on Underground Crafter. Basically every other week one of us will be sharing a small sewing project, a "little gift" idea. It will be something that takes 1-4 fat quarters, or less than 1 yard of fabric to make. They will all work as stocking stuffers, or for any other time you need a small gift. The idea is that by the end of the year you will have lots of little gift ideas perfect for Christmas stockings, or just building up a stash of gifts.

Easy Vinyl Embellishments for a Play Kitchen

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One of my favorite things about being a crafter is that my kids think I can make anything. Sometimes their requests are a little more than my abilities can manage but a lot of times I try to make it work. One of the simpler things I was asked to to involved my daughter's play kitchen. 

Farm Animal Finger Puppet Playset

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12 Days of Crocheted Stocking Stuffers

DAY 10

Day 10, only a couple of days left to go in the 12 Days of Crocheted Stocking Stuffers Series. Hopefully you have enjoy the projects so far and they have given you some good stocking stuffer ideas.

Whale Baby Set with the Cricut Maker and EasyPress 2

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One of the things I love most about working with my Cricut is how quick and easy it is to make things. Iron on is my favorite material to work with because I feel like I can make cute projects in no time at all, but I also love that I can work with a variety of other materials too. This adorable little whale themed baby set including both a shirt and a softie is a perfect example of a quick project like that, all made with the Cricut.

Crocheted Mermaid Doll

My newest pattern for Fairfield World is now available on their site and I love the way this one turned out. This crocheted mermaid doll has been a huge hit with my girls. She is about 18" tall which I thought was a great size to play with.

Busy Bags

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I am always looking for activities to keep my kids busy, especially when we go places where they need to be quiet. I thought it would be fun to put together some little busy bags with activities in them that would keep the kids entertained. 

5 Little Monsters Top Ten Posts from 2017

It is always fun to look back at the end of the year to see which posts were the most popular. I like to look back at  all of the things that I have made throughout the year and to see if my favorite projects were your favorites as well. For this post I am only counting projects that were published to my blog in 2017. If you saw my post from a couple of days ago, The Best of the Best crafts of 2017, where I got together with more than 30 craft bloggers to share our best posts of the year, than you already know my top post but I am going to count down anyway. So here goes, my top posts of the year are:

Crocheted Olympic Torch

I thought that with the Olympics coming up next month it would be kind of fun to do an Olympic themed project. I thought about what the most iconic symbols of the Olympics are, the rings, the torch, the medals, and ended up deciding to make a torch. I remember when the Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake it was a pretty big deal when the torch came through town, everyone went down to watch it pass by. It was pretty cool. I thought it would be fun to make a torch that could either be used as a decoration for an Olympic's party or just for the kids to play with. It turned out that after I made it my son got really attached to it and carried it around all weekend playing with it. Granted, he spent more time pretending it was a rocket than a torch but I guess the fact that he had fun with it is all that really matters.

Boxy Monkey

About a year ago I posted a pattern for Boxy Fox. People seemed to like it so I decided to do a little set. I ended up making a trio of woodland type animals, a fox, an owl, and a bear. They still tend to be some of my more popular patterns so for quite a while I have been thinking about doing another set of animals and I finally decided to do it. So without further ado meet the newest member of the boxy family, Boxy Monkey.

Crocheted Boxy Fox

My newest crochet pattern is now available on the Fairfield World website. I have been wanting to make some sort of little stuffed animal or amigurumi type doll for a while and finally decided to do it. I made this little boxy fox. It has a rectangular base that gives it its boxy shape. I crocheted the arms, legs and tail in as I made the body so that they are nice and secure, and so that I had less sewing to do at the end. I used weighted beads in the bottom to help it sit up and stuffed the rest with fiberfill. It was fun to make and I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Now I am thinking of other animals that I can make to go with it. Get the Boxy Fox pattern HERE.