Crochet Rosalina From Super Mario Galaxy

I’ve been working on a challenging project for a little over a week now, and I finally finished. My son is into video games, and he liked the Sora doll I made for him as a Christmas gift. His birthday was only a few days away and he asked if it was possible for me to make another game character.

Could I! Of course I could! I love when my family challenges me with something they want out of crochet. What he wanted was a character named Rosalina. As usual, I didn’t know anything about that character, but he showed me illustrations as well as video from the game. I got a good sense of her.

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She reminded me of Elsa from Frozen…a lot!

At first, I thought…easy peasy. And for the most part, she was. But that hair! And the eyes! I normally like to use buttons for the eyes. I asked my son if he wanted me to try embroidering them as we could always fall back on buttons if I couldn’t do it. I watched some videos for inspiration, and I did my own thing anyway.

So far so good…

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New Crochet Pink-Haired Doll

After finishing my son’s Sora doll for Christmas, I started work on this new doll for my sister’s acquaintance. The only direction I had was for pink hair. Using the techniques I describe in my book (like how I snuck my book in there?), I made the body.

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My sister helped me pick out the eyes from my button collection.

My sister and I picked out the colors for the dress. She had an idea on how the dress should look, so that’s what I set out to do. As with all my dolls, it’s the doll that decides what it wants. I started working on a dress, but it, or the doll–I don’t know which–didn’t want it to be a dress! I made several attempts at a dress before I admitted defeat. I liked how the top was coming out, so I kept that. The part that was supposed to be a skirt desperately wanted to be pants.

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She looks much happier doesn’t she?

Then, it was on to the hair! I didn’t necessarily struggle with the hair, but I didn’t like it at first. She looked like a clown! But I kept at it, knowing I might have to take it all out and start over.

Luckily, I didn’t have to do that, and I ended up liking it.

The pins reminded me of a Star Trek character. 😂

The hair worked out!

My succulent garden makes for a great photo shoot.

I even included a little purse.

What do you think? Do you like how she came out?

Progress on Life Size Doll

Progress on the creepy life-sized doll is slow going. The body is done but I haven’t really had a chance to work on anything else but I did get started on the hands and am hopeful I can get the arms done by the end of the month.

 

That’s a kindergartner hand. Pretty close.

Once the arms get done, I can give her a shirt and finally give her some hair. Once she gets hair, she won’t be quite so creepy. I threw a small work shirt on her so the kids could stop worrying about her state of nakedness. Although, I might let her keep the shirt. 🙂

The kids are super excited now. One of my second graders was in her last week with us before a move to another state and she used the ‘moving’ card on me.  I wasn’t letting any of them play with the doll. It was weird  to me she wanted to play with something that looked like a bowling pin  but how could I say no to my student when she looked at me all sad and telling me she won’t get to see it finished. I handed it to her and the kids all squealed with delight. Honestly, I didn’t understand how they could have so much excitement over a half finished doll that looked creepy to boot. Must be a kid thing.

Scary Life Size Doll Head

I mentioned in a previous post that I was crocheting a life size doll of myself at work. Alas, I had to place it on the back burner in lieu of other, more pressing projects. Well, it’s day has come! I will not pick up any other projects until that doll is done. So I in that spirit…

I resumed work on the head. My little minions (Kindergarteners) couldn’t help themselves from helping me work on the doll. I had completed the head and had embroidered the face, using their suggestions of course. It was ready for stuffing.

Before I stuffed, I had to get up for something and left my work on the table. I can see all of you shaking your heads thinking to yourselves that I was asking for it. I see no pity in your eyes. I did indeed ask for it. I came back to a student running around with his hand in the opening of the doll head, using it like a puppet. A long string of yarn was tailing him around the room as it unwound from the ball of yarn. I quickly had him bring it back. Luckily, I had my stitch marker in so it didn’t unravel.

Can someone help me run around the room? I’m bored.

Now that she was rescued, it was time for stuffing. They love helping me stuff so I let them

Craft Fair

Leading up to the annual craft fair at the elementary school where I work is always insane, mainly because I usually decide to participate at the last minute (shame on me). This year I did the same thing. I wasn’t sure I had enough pieces to fill up a table and I certainly didn’t have enough time to make a bunch of new pieces. But a week before, I agreed to do it and then it was a frenzy of trying to create items the students would enjoy. In that week, I managed to make four Pokeballs, two poop emojis, eight doll purses, and two smiley emojis. That was it. Luckily, I still had some dolls and hats lying around that could fill up my half of the table. My lovely, artistic, amazing and super talented daughter had the other half filled with her artwork (bad mommy that I am, I didn’t take any pictures).

My booth at the craft fair at Promenade Elementary School

I noticed that there was another booth that was selling crocheted toys and they had a really nice setup with some really nice things. I felt too inadequate to actually go over there. I had a tiny table with a mish-mash of items. My daughter went over and checked out the competition and being the good daughter that she is, told me my stuff was more unique. Well, it was definitely that. None-the-less, I did better than I had in previous years. I only had a few pieces but I focused on things I thought the kids would like and I knew my students would come check out my booth no matter how small it was. Almost all the items I specifically made for the fair sold. I wish I had had more time to make more Pokeballs and emojis. Those sold out fast with the kids wanting more. The poop emojis didn’t last long either. But most exciting of all was that I sold the Elsa doll from Frozen and that red-headed doll in the top right of the picture (above).

Great picture of Elsa taken by a PTO mom.

I always get a little thrill when I sell one of my dolls AND no one tried to talk me down on the prices. One of the hardest parts for me is pricing my items. In previous years, people loved the work but thought they were too expensive. This year, the items just sold! I was so happy.

The making of some of the items on the table were chronicled on previous blog posts. The tooth with the toothbrush (sold), the Pokeballs (sold), the purpliciousdoll in the top row, the Christmas doll with the purple hat, the face emojis, the Elsa (sold) and Anna dolls, and the superman doll.

An added bonus of doing the fair is that I get to see my students, past and present. Lots of hugs were dispensed that day. My favorite part is when they tell me they still have and value something I made that they either got from our prize box or that they purchased from a previous craft fair. How wonderful is that!

It started as a joke…

The idea has been thrown around before, never with much expectation that it will truly happen. I mean, it’s preposterous. It would be a huge undertaking that might never see the light of day. Alas, the idea came up again as a joke but this time, that little worm made it’s way to the part of my brain that accepts ridiculous crochet projects.

I am now in the process of creating a life size crochet doll modeled after me that will stand sentry at work (where I run an after school program). We have giggled that it will take my place at work and no one will be the wiser. Most likely it will scare unsuspecting night custodians who clean up our room when we are all gone. My fellow teachers who are in the

Eli the Firefly

I love crochet challenges. Crochet challenges have been lobbed at me from family, friends, the kids at work and me. A recent challenge came from my hubby. He is a graphic designer and has many samples of products he’s worked on laying around. One of his current projects included a cute toy called Eli the Firefly. His client is a dentist who created a book and a plush lighted toy that inspires kids to brush their teeth properly. Hubby asked if I thought I could recreate the toy in crochet. As if there was any doubt, of course I could! What kind of question was that? And if so, would I? He thought it would make a nice gift for his client. It was a fabulous idea and I accepted the challenge.

This is a sample of Eli that shows what he looks like.

Freebie Friday – Mermaids Everywhere!

I have always been partial to mermaids. I love mermaids and I often wished I could be a mermaid. I love stories and books about mermaids and I’ve even written stories and poems about mermaids. Don’t run for cover! I wouldn’t subject you to my mermaid writings. This is a blog about crochet after all. I WILL subject you to my mermaid inspired crochet. 😉 I’ve made four mermaid dolls (two were cute but the other two were questionable).

I’m the cute one.

Rediscovered Crochet Pieces

One of the benefits of cleaning up and decluttering your space is that you find things you forgot you had. I was helping my son declutter his room and encouraging him to toss or donate the things he no longer needed or no longer had any meaning to him. In the process, we came across some crochet pieces I had made for him years ago. He had them on display in a bookshelf that he hardly ever looked at anymore. There were some things there that went into a donation box. I asked him if we should donate the crochet pieces too.

When he was younger, he was very into a game called Crash Bandicoot. He loved it so much, he asked me to make him a couple of items from the game. There was this box that the main character used to jump on and break. There were Gems as well. He laughed when he saw the crocheted gems and said they didn’t look quite like the gems he remembered from the video game.

This was the type of reference I had for the gems.

Freebie Friday – Crochet Heart for Purplicious Doll

Purplicious is done. She is fully assembled and more importantly, clothed.

I’m ready for my debut!

Once finished, it surprised me that some family members thought she looked like my daughter. First thing out of hubby’s mouth was, “She looks like Daughter.” On a different day my sister said, “She looks like Niece.” Why? Because she’s purple? Daughter’s favorite color is purple. My favorite color is purple. No one thinks she looks like me. They both said the doll just does. Works for me. 🙂