Ice Cream Octopus

“hey hey your new friends it's stor from Ninja bunny crochet I'm back so you might be wondering what happened where'd you go what's going on stick around and you'll find [Music] out okay this is what happened I started doing craft shows in the spring of 2023 and I was way underprepared to um do craft shows and continue with the vid with YouTube and crochet designing and I took on babysitting my little baby uh cousin who is absolutely adorable and I got to put a picture of her in here as you can see she's adorable um she's just turned a year old love her to Pieces so anyway um I was not prepared for the amount of inventory you needed to do the number of shows that I had scheduled I was scheduling one to two shows a month one to two I was usually about two weeks in between shows sometimes I had a little bit more time sometimes I had three weeks sometimes I only had a week and I underestimated in the amount of not not not only the amount of inventory but I really didn't have a good grasp on what is selling in the at CRA at craft shows in my area or craft shows in general I'm was kind of thinking the same things that I used to sell 20 something years ago you know baby sweaters and baby outfits and and honestly that was not what was selling so I had made all of these baby sets and no one was interested in any of that stuff so I had to switch gears and make up new inventory of what people wanted which was honestly stuffies that's what people wanted and I had to learn a new skill set on top of creating inventory and a young lady from uh my church who's a high schooler uh she does a lot of uh crocheting amies and stuffies and she taught me a lot about how to do the amaris and how to do the stuffies so I am I wouldn't say that I am an expert in any way shape or form of making stuffies but I can make some pretty cute stuffies now so I started making stuffies I invited her to come along on the the craft shows and sell her stuffies which she she actually out sells me um which is I think is phenomenal that she that she sells more than I do I think it's wonderful that she does that cuz um she's sells her her profits that she makes goes towards not only buying her more yarn because she loves crocheting um but she also uses it to help fund like her band trips and stuff and things like that that she wants to do so I think that's really great that you know she's come up with a way to fund the things that she wants to do and she in turn has also taught me how to do amigi which I thought was great because it is a skill set it's different than just regular crocheting amigi is a separate skill sh skill set from crocheting um so I think it's really great we've had a good time but I was getting overwhelmed Med I was not I was running out of spoons by the end of the week um between trying to get enough inventory so that I had stuff to sell and taking care of Athena taking care of the baby and then taking care of my family and being able to spend time with my husband and I just I was running out of spoons I just didn't have any time and then it was like oh gosh I need to make a video now what am I going to make a video on I don't have pattern I don't have time to design any new crochet patterns I my mind is just so exhausted with learning this new skill set of amomi I don't have time to croch to design a crochet pattern so something had to give and what gave was not giving up not giving up my channel but just not adding new content to my channel for a little bit so I'm I'm going to be doing a little bit different um on my channel I am still going to try to do some new tutorials just not as many as I had done in the past but for 2024 I am still doing craft shows because I really found that I did enjoy doing the go going out there meeting the people and talking to new people and I do enjoy making amies but I'm doing I'm trying to get ahead of it now instead of the way I did it last year so I'm trying I've got a set number of things that I'm going to make and I'm going to try to get ahead of it like it's January now it's January 2024 and my first show is not till the middle of May so I have four months basically to get a large number of inventory up so that but I'm going to also continue to make more inventory during the season as well to replace the inventory that I'm selling but hopefully that will keep me ahead so that I'm not feeling so overwhelmed and overworked during the season to keep up with the markets and I should be able to make some videos as well um they might be Vlog videos like this I'll be talking about maybe doing some Market prep videos showing you what I've made talking about the markets talking about what sold what didn't so cell and things like that and just talking about basically crochet in general crochet and yarn in general and if I can get in a few tutorials here and there that'll be um basically icing on the cake so let me get into what I have made so far and show you what I've got but first I take a drink and I'm not sponsored by these by this company at all but if you Tred these this company called Circle these are phenomenal they get you to drink a lot more water too so the first thing I want to talk show you is my turtles I I love making these Turtles right now I just have sunflower Turtles made but I've got lots of different style Turtles but right now for now I just have sunflower Turtles started so here's one of my sunflower Turtles now I'll link the the patterns down below so if you want to make some of these patterns too if you want to make some of these Turtles isn't this adorable and I got a cricket for uh with my Joann's gift cards for Christmas and I started making these eyes so I can make these cute eyes these felt eyes so but this is one of the the turtles my sunflower turtle and most of the yarn that I use for the amies is uh premier's let me get this right Premier Basics Chenille brights it's a lot like um brat blanket but it's softer and it's a little bit thinner so it's easier on my hands cuz I have rheumatoid arthritis so the brat blank it can be really stiff and hard on my hands but this yarn is so much softer and it's so much easier on my hands look at that Turtle isn't she cute so I have that one and I believe this is um Caribbean that color uh green is called Caribbean and then I have this turtle and that is in teal and this is the caramel color or car carel color and mustard is the color for the petals this one is I believe it's a just called yellow I think it's just called bright yellow or lemon but then I made that eye too that's got silver glitter on it so yeah she's so that one's cute too I guess this one could be a boy being teal I don't know I like I tend to call them all girls but who knows and then I have one in sand with the caramel and mustard flour and then here's another one in Emerald with green eyes I thought that looked really nice and this has got the lemon and caramel shell where the other um oh that was the teal one but so yeah they're all kind of a little bit different and then I have two made in Sage with the mustard and teal mustard and uh caramel shells except for I don't have their eyes on yet I got to put eyes on these guys I have to put the Eyes on them and then I have one done in I believe this is chel home slim it's called from Michaels I tried some of this yarn I've made I made Turtles last year at the market out of this yarn I'm not a big fan of this yarn it's it is definitely soft and it's pretty yarn the problem I have with this yarn is that it's very how do you want to put it delicate I guess it would be it's it's difficult to frog cuz it'll it it tends to shed a lot and then you end up with braks in the yarn where you can see the string and when you're trying to sew the head on cuz this is the only thing that you have to sew on this pattern is the head to the turtle the flippers croch you crochet them in and the tail you crochet in it's a really cute pattern you have to sew the head on and what I do is I take two knitting needles and I put the knitting needles through the head through the body to hold the head on while I'm sewing it so that I get the head on straight and while you're sewing the head on the the yarn the the fuzzy the tends to shed and then you end up with like these brakes in the yarn and you end up with a string so I really don't particularly like that I do have some parfait chunky I haven't tried it yet I've heard that parfait chunky doesn't shed as much as that but I heard that it still does shed so but I haven't tried it yet but I really like this um premere Basics Chenille brights this is my favorite one they do have a basic uh Chenille it comes in bigger balls it's a little bit thicker more close to Bernat blanket but it's still it's still nice I I've used that too um they don't have as many colors as the brights the brights has like 15 I think colors 15 20 colors something like that a good amount of colors not as many as parfait chunky but still a good amount of colors and let's see what's next uh I got my bucket over here so if you see me looking down that's why I'm looking down I've made some alligators so I I think these are cute so I have a couple of alligators cuz I figured I've got little boys that are always looking for stuff and they always go oh well you have cute thing they look at the Cutie stuff and they're like nothing for me here so I figured I'd make some alligator then I've got chickens cuz chickens seem to be really popular so I've got one two three I've got four different color chickens that I made this is a black and white this is Bernette blanket and then this is kind of a multicolor again this is Bernat blanket it's got like these just very subtle I think it's the Bernat front frosted I think it's called I don't remember cuz I I kind of ditched the label I think I got four chickens out of one ball of brat blanket so that was not too bad and then this is the the chenille I already put a tag on this one that uh Chenille um Premier Premier basics chal brights and this is the sand color and this one looks bigger than this because what happened is the time I made this one this was one that I had made actually last season and this is one I made recently and the difference the reason why this one's smaller than this one is that I learned I learned a new technique this one's done with the yarn under yarn over technique and this is made with the yarn over technique so when you do a yarn under yarn over it comes a little bit smaller because your stitches are Tighter and closer together which helps you with any kind of gaps so that you're um you don't have any spaces so this one is got it's a little bit um bigger because it has a little bit more spaces in it and not that the the stuffing is not showing in this but it's not as stuffed it's a little bit squishier cuz it's not as stuffed as this one so over time this is this one might not last as well it's might it might collapse a little bit where this is going to hold up a little bit longer so when I've learned that doing the yarn under yarn over technique gives you a tighter Fabric and you can stuff it more so that you can get it uh a tighter um packing in your stuffing which will help your stuffies last longer help your plushies last a little bit longer over time especially if they're played with a lot so just some little things that I'm learning about amig groming that I didn't know about prior so and let's see now I made a couple a bunny couple these are super super cute here's the little boy and he's got a little carrot bag look at this he's got a little little poof poof tail I think he's so cute and then I made his little girlfriend there's his little girlfriend and she's got a poof poof tail too right there there's her poof poof tail so she's pretty cute too so the two of them together now I figured you know I'm not going to necessarily sell them as a set but they could be a set cuz somebody might not want both of them but if somebody only wanted one I'm not going to tell them that they have to buy both I'm going to sell them individually but I've actually already got people who have put in orders for these bunnies already so not even start had a show yet and I got people wanting the bunnies so I think that's pretty cool then I made a snake made a rainbow snake I just thought it was really cute to make a rainbow snake so I figur it's not it's not like a realistic looking snake but I thought it was pretty cute I kind of go for the cute over realistic I know some people like realistic especially when it comes to things like snakes but I thought this was super cute so now these next items that I made are done basically with with a scrap like acrylic yarn because I have a huge huge tote full of scrap yarn so and didn't like what am I going to do with all this scrap yarn so I was been searching out you know little projects I figed why not so I made I found this on crafty Kitty crochet it's an ice cream octopus I thought it was so cute and you know I know she's not sitting like straight on my hand but she does sit she kind of sits straight on the table the little cone is off to the side but it's super super cute so I made like a bunch of these with some scrap yarn so I got them in different colors so I thought they were so so cute and they're they work up really really really really easy they work up so quick and they're just adorable I think they're so cute so this pattern you can buy the um you can buy the PDF but I think she also has it on her blog so I will link a link it in the uh description box below cuz I'm I'm pretty sure she has this one on her blog too where you can get this one for free but I I'm not I bought the PDF off of her uh Etsy shop I believe but you can get I believe she has it she has a free version on her blog look at that isn't that adorable I think it's so cute so let me grab my last one here I just think these are so cute and I got one more thing to show you before I go one of my subscribers on my Facebook page was talking about these and this is a free pattern it's a it's YouTube video and these are Tic TCT toe bags so you make the little bag and then inside you make these little markers so that you can play Tic-Tac-Toe so I have red markers and yellow markers in the green bag and then in the cream color bag I made purple and pink so I'm definitely going to make a few more of these CU I think they're really cute and I think they'll I think they'll sell so that's a Tic Tac Toe bag it's like a travel tic tac toe game I think they're super super cute I think it would be like it would definitely like work for uh well if you're doing an Easter uh Market I'm not doing Easter markets but if you're doing an Easter Market you these would go good in like an Easter basket if you're doing a Christmas Market good for Christmas stuffing uh stocking stuffer so either way um but I'll link I'll put links to all of the patterns that I that I showed you today in the description box like I said some are free some are not some are paid but that way if you want to make any of these items for yourself or for markets you can uh you can do so so thanks for watching and happy crocheting I'll see you in the next video have fun bye-bye”