Crochet Bumble Bee Mobile

It's been a long while since I've shared some crochet creativity - I gave you a glimpse here of my recent project.  You may remember that around this time last year I was all excited because we had three new babies joining the family in the shape of gorgeous nieces and nephews.  Well of course, their first birthdays have come around with terrific speed, prompting me to scour my relevant pinterest board for crochet inspiration... and this is what I came up with:

The most challenging thing about sharing this project in all honesty was photographing it!!  I really enjoyed the process of making this mobile and Little Lady has put in a request for an owl mobile of her own - so watch this space!

Do you remember I showed you a glimpse of the creatures before they had their big smiles added? The inspiration came because apparently my lovely niece is 'a Busy Bee' and her mummy is making a bumble bee birthday cake to celebrate her first birthday.  I had already chosen a little something as a gift but the nickname would not shift from my brain and it meant that I simply had to create something...

Laid down doesn't do the 'mobile effect' any justice but with a simple 'point and shoot' camera I had so many blurry photos this was the most successful method!!

I used this fantastic pattern together with some flower patterns from attic24.  I picked buttons from my stash and embroidered basic features onto the bumble bees.  I used an embroidery hoop I'd picked up in a charity shop months ago, covered any knots with washi tape and using basic chain stitches I sewed the flowers onto the hoop in order to assemble the mobile.

I'm really pleased with the outcome and as my first amigurumi crochet I was happy with how it all came together.  Have you been a Busy Bee lately?!

J9 x

Linking up with the Farm Blog Hop

My Big Boy's Birthday

On 25th June our little man turned 6.  It left me musing on just where time goes.

He's a joyful character full of love, adventure and mischief.  Currently, his favourite things to do are:

• to play knights and castles,
• to play batman,
• play with cars,
• Top Trumps and
• rough and tumble with Daddy.

Otherwise, it's outside...  playing football, swingball, basket ball, tennis, chase, on the trampoline, scooting, bike riding, catch...  You name it, if it's outdoors he loves it.

He requested a dinosaur cake - again I looked to Pinterest for inspiration.  I made 4 round sandwich cakes (8in tins).  Cut one round in half to form the hump back of the body and then continued to cut the remaining parts of the body from the remaining cakes.  I used the curves of the outside of the cake rounds to sculpt the shape of the tail, neck etc.

After butter creaming and laying over the fondant I started adding detail.  I vaguely wanted the dinosaur to have a stegosaurus features and little man did state that that's what type of dinosaur it was - so it wasn't too far off.

I really enjoyed making this cake.  I mixed the fondant colours and made the cakes the day before I cut, shaped it and put it all together the following day - and that approach seemed to work well.  It seemed more relaxed to do it that way - which is always good in my book!

Our family tradition for birthdays is that the cake is a big part - almost as big as the presents themselves... so it felt good to see his eyes light up as I brought it in to the dining room to the usual chorus of 'Happy Birthday'.  He knew for months that he wanted a dinosaur cake.  I wonder what the next requests will be!

Happy Birthday darling boy.

Remember - there's still time to enter my Owl themed giveaway.  Just go ahead and leave me a comment under the original post here and winners will be drawn from a hat after 19th July!!

Good Luck!

J9 x

This post is joining in with these lovely parties:

Inspire Me Tuesday

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Homemaking Link Up

What's it Wednesdays

Show & Share Wednesdays