The Fuzzy Seal pattern is now available! You can order it directly from PlanetJune.com and the pdf will be e-mailed to you.

Now you can make your own amigurumi baby harp seal!

April’s OneHourCraft Challenge is “to make an impossibly gorgeous necklace”, so I got the polymer clay out and started playing.

I used a base of translucent Fimo Soft, with snakes of green and blue running through it. I also added dark greeny-blue micro beads (tiny glass beads with no holes) to the rounded beads, which is why they look darker than the others. I had a bit of a surprise when I baked the beads – they darkened and went from greenish blue to a definite green, but that’s okay:

I strung the beads with silver (coloured) spacers and findings. The finished necklace length is 14″ so it’s just longer than a choker and sits around the base of my neck.

Click for full-size version

Thanks Mia for the inspiration to make a necklace! This was a fun quick craft to try.

I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I got home today. And it was perfectly timed to cheer me up (my wrist is hurting again, thanks to some work-related strain on it yesterday):

Photo taken in dappled sunlight to prove that the sun really is out – yay!

It’s a package of cute and fruity treats from Heidi of My Paper Crane, who makes (amongst other wonderful things) the most adorable plush foods in existence. Thanks Heidi – it’s much appreciated 🙂

I made these polymer clay faux granite rocks last week. They were originally intended to be stones for the base of my artificial bonsai, but I decided they weren’t quite right for that project. I just sanded them quickly with my homemade detail sander to get my fingerprints off. (The size of each stone is about 1 or 2cm.)

Are they real, or are they FIMO? Click the pic to take a closer look…

Testing another pattern for Kristen, here’s my second (and last) little fairy – she’s a bit shy though:

Ahh, here she is!

I’m really pleased with her hair: I unravelled the plies of worsted weight yarn so it would be fine and fluffy and curly:

It was fun to try out someone else’s patterns for a change, but now I’m ready to return to my own creations. My next planned crocheted animal (by popular demand) will be Fuzzy Ferret… watch this space!

I tested this fairy pattern for Kristen. I followed the pattern exactly except for the colours and hairstyle. And I had far too much fun giving her the long thick tresses (chocolate brown with black streaks and honey highlights) that I will never have in real life! Isn’t she cute?

And now for something completely different…

Inspired by a segment on artificial bonsai on the TV show How It’s Made that I saw on Discovery channel last week, and Mumblepeg’s lovely crocheted sakura (the “Best Wildcard” winner in the Softie Awards), I was inspired to create my own bonsai sakura (that’s a cherry blossom tree, in case you were wondering).

Click picture for full-size version

I’m not going to show you a full tutorial, but here’s a brief rundown of my methods, in case you feel inspired to try something similar.

The moss and soil is made from foam, cut to shape and painted with green and brown acrylic paints. The branches are formed from 18 and 22 gauge wire, fleshed out with strips of paper towel and then wrapped in brown floral tape.

The flowers are hand-sculpted from FIMO Soft polymer clay. I poked a length of fine bead wire through the back of each flower before baking, and then used the ends of these wires to attach the flowers to the branches. I used more floral tape to cover the exposed wires.

I planted my sakura in the bonsai pot that had once housed my attempt at a real bonsai: I tended, wired and pruned the little sapling for a couple of years, but it eventually withered and went to bonsai heaven. I’ve kept the pot for five years, waiting for the courage to try growing another bonsai.

I’m hopeful that, with favourable lighting conditions, this sakura will be so happy and content that it will bloom year-round…

I really am back in action! Fuzzy Penguin needed a friend, so I’ve made a baby fuzzy seal:

They are fast friends already, as you can see:

Maui decided the photoshoot couldn’t proceed without at least one shot including his handsome face 🙂

This pattern is (I hope) going to be a true original – I’ve never seen anything even remotely like it before! The entire head and body is made in one piece.

The Fuzzy Seal pattern should be finished within a week. Sign up for the mailing list if you’d like to be notified when it’s available.

UPDATE: Looking for the patterns? You can find the Fuzzy Penguin crochet pattern and Fuzzy Seal crochet pattern in my shop.