DIY Amagarumi Squirt from Finding Nemo

With the release of Finding Dory on the horizon, I thought it would be fun to revisit this post. Enjoy!

If you like amagarumi and you are not familiar with Roxycraft and Tammie O., let me introduce you. These patterns are very well written and easy to follow and she has quite a selection to choose from. I loved doing this Big Poke as a version of Squirt, from Finding Nemo.

I haven't really worked much with amagarumi. I've dabbled a little for my nieces and Doc, but nothing that I really had a vision for how it should turn out. This project was different. I really wanted it to look like Squirt when I was all done. I'm happy with the end result, but as with most first-time projects, I learned a lot about amagarumi along the way. Here are a few tips I wish I had known before I started:

1. don't go up a hook size; next time if I don't have the hook I am looking for I will go down a size or buy the hook(s) I need. I don't love how open the stitching is.
2. Safety Eyes and Suncatcher Eyes are totally the way to go! If you need some, look no further than The Tiny Garden on Etsy. Leslie had a great selection and wonderful customer service. Plus they were really easy to use.
3. follow the directions; I over stuffed the head and little Squirt won't stand up without a little help - also, the up-a-hook-size thing may have made this more of a problem.
4. cotton yarn is soft and lovely, but it doesn't fill in the way the acrylic blend does. (I would assume wool would fill in better too.) I'll try a different yarn the next time.

But having said all that, I like this little character. He definitely reminds me of Squirt! Here's what I did to alter the pattern:

I used 30mm Suncatcher Eyes instead of the 18mm recommended in the pattern. I used Scrapbook & Cards today's tutorial to create the crocheted flowers. And obviously I used a different color assortment for the yarn. 

I hope you'll take some time to check out Roxycraft for yourself. And if you make up one of her patterns, we'd love to see it! Tag us on Instagram (@merryweatherscottage) or post a picture here in the comments. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Back To School | Unique Disney Notebooks/Journals

I have to admit I am a sucker for school supplies. I love to restock my own studio with new school supplies  when we go shopping for the kids. (And that time is now, here in the midwest. Our first day of school for the district is July 30th. I know some of you on the east coast just finished school and can't imagine going back now!)Oh how I wish I could have had access to THESE notebooks for school when I was a kid! Classes would have been even better.

Now that RedBubble is selling notebooks, all these designs (and more!) are available for you back to school shopping! And you don't even have to leave your house to do it!

You can find my RedBubble profile here, with all my designs. Simply click on the design you like and scroll down the page to find the product you are looking for! And don't forget there are tote bags and drawstring bags and studio pouched too! Enjoy your back to school shopping; until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Shark Bait Finding Nemo Inspired T-shirt in RedBubble Shop

And because you just can't have enough Shark Bait designs, I give you my latest t-shirt design: Shark Bait Hoo Ha Ha!

I know, I know, Nemo, Nemo, Nemo. But I couldn't resist this one. How adorable would this be for your Disney friend's little one?? I think It's awesome. But this design just didn't translate as well to the other products, so this one is exclusively for t-shirts.

Check it out in the shop, and until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Ring of Fire Design Now in RedBubble Shop

The littles and I have been on a Finding Nemo kick lately. They tend to watch movies like that: over and over until they are memorized! So when that happens, it seems best for me to just roll with it and take inspiration! And that's where this idea erupted from (see what I did there?), that continual Finding Nemo loop and Nemo's initiation into the Tank Gang.

If it's been a while since you've seen Finding Nemo, suffice it to say that Nemo has to conquer the Ring Of Fire (swimming through the bubbles from the volcano in the dentist's fish tank). Here's a clip of the original scene:

As usual, you can get this design in my RedBubble shop on T-shirts, bags, mugs, leggings and cases for your electronics. Go crazy! Initiate your friends in the bonds of tankhood. And until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Celebrating National Crochet Month Disney Style

If you don't crochet, you may not know that March is National Crochet Month. As such, I thought it would be fun to do a round up of all the Disney crochet projects I've done on the blog over the last two years! To get the story on how I made them and a link to the patterns, click on the caption. It will take you to the original post.

I hope you enjoy them, and may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Tangled Passie Clip

Disney Dress Up Crowns

Amigurumi Squirt

Adult Sized Mickey Beanie

Princess Wrap

Welcome to the EAC Disney Inspired Hand Knit Socks

Welcome to the EAC, Dude! I've been hanging on the this sock yarn for longer than I'd like to admit. I often see beautiful hand painted yarn, snap it up, and then wonder how I can use it. It doesn't show off intricate patterns too well, so you have to be somewhat picky in the choice of socks you are going to knit. This is true of self-striping yarn as well, although that's the beauty of the self-striping stuff. You can knit a plain old vanilla sock and get something that looks amazing.

I finally found a pattern that fits this beautiful hand painted yarn. It reminds me of the scene in Finding Nemo where Crush welcomes Marlin and Dory to the EAC! The pattern sort of swirls around the legs a bit without distorting or pooling the colors. And oh how I LOVE these colors!

I also fell in love with this pattern for two reasons. The first is that this was a very easy pattern to memorize. This is wonderful for knitting on the go. The second is that I was able to alter this pattern very easily to accommodate my very curvy calves. The pattern comes in four sizes and the chart was very easy to modify going from the larger size for my calves, to the smaller size for the rest of the sock. If you are into those sorts of details, you can find them all on my Ravelry page. There's even a link to the pattern.

Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust, Dude!

DIY Disney's Crush the Turtle T-shirt

I think Crush is my favorite character in Finding Nemo (although I'm in love with Dory too). And I LOVE seeing Turtle Talk With Crush when we are in Epcot. I think I may even like it more than the kids! I'm always the first to suggest it. And when I saw this excellent turtle design in the Silhouette shop, I knew a t-shirt was in order!

I started with a 2T-3T shirt I happened to have on hand. We get a lot of hand-me-down clothes and I like to use them for these sorts of projects. It helps to make them feel new. It also makes this a very budget-friendly project. Since I had all the materials on hand already, making this was completely, 100% free to me!

I cut out this Turtle Tribal design from Silhouette stencil vinyl using my Silhouette Portrait machine. I sized the design to be about 6.5" wide and 3.875" high. This is an intricate design, so be very careful transferring it to the t-shirt. Make sure all those tiny dots are on there nice and tight! Once I had the design transferred, I painted the design with black fabric paint.

I then cut out the word "dude" using the Jungle Fever font. I had planned on putting it right below the turtle, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I smudged some paint on the shirt while I was rushing to finish it (haste makes waste!) - so I decided to cover it up with the "dude"! I'm really happy with the result. It's a little unexpected; kinda like Crush!

I was also toyed with the idea of writing "dude" or "squirt" on this one. I like the idea of both, so I'm thinking I might do another for Minnie to wear with "squirt" written on the back, the way you would see it on a jersey. We'll see what happens with that idea! Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Upcycled Disney Nightshirt

Spring is eventually coming and Minnie is going to need some lighter sleep attire. And, as you may imagine, we have a plethora of old T-shirts from Disney. So when I saw this easy tutorial from It's Always Autumn I knew this was a project that would be perfect for us. And it was, both easy and perfect.

Minnie is currently wearing a size 12-18 months, so I used an adult size XS shirt. It was just what I was looking for. I don't know about you, but I find that the sizing of Disney clothes can be wildly different across the board. Especially kids clothes. I always get a size up if there's a question. So I was nervous about how this would fit; but there was no need. She fits it quite well. And in a year or so, I think it'll be cute with a pair of leggings and a hair bow; perfect resort wear!

Incidentally, if you don't have a plethora of Disney t-shirts hanging around your cottage, Goodwill (or your local donation center/thrift store) is a great place to find park merchandise for a steal! Especially t-shirts and hoodies. I found this one for $4.00. I was sad it wasn't in my size but I knew I'd find a way to use it. And here it is! Just the right thing for a growing girl. I also have dreams of a Disney t-shirt quilt...we'll have to wait and see if that materializes! So until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Amagarumi Squirt from Finding Nemo

If you like amagarumi and you are not familiar with Roxycraft and Tammie O., let me introduce you. These patterns are very well written and easy to follow and she has quite a selection to choose from. I loved doing this Big Poke as a version of Squirt, from Finding Nemo.

I haven't really worked much with amagarumi. I've dabbled a little for my nieces and Doc, but nothing that I really had a vision for how it should turn out. This project was different. I really wanted it to look like Squirt when I was all done. I'm happy with the end result, but as with most first-time projects, I learned a lot about amagarumi along the way. Here are a few tips I wish I had known before I started:

1. don't go up a hook size; next time if I don't have the hook I am looking for I will go down a size or buy the hook(s) I need. I don't love how open the stitching is.
2. Safety Eyes and Suncatcher Eyes are totally the way to go! If you need some, look no further than The Tiny Garden on Etsy. Leslie had a great selection and wonderful customer service. Plus they were really easy to use.
3. follow the directions; I over stuffed the head and little Squirt won't stand up without a little help - also, the up-a-hook-size thing may have made this more of a problem.
4. cotton yarn is soft and lovely, but it doesn't fill in the way the acrylic blend does. (I would assume wool would fill in better too.) I'll try a different yarn the next time.

But having said all that, I like this little character. He definitely reminds me of Squirt! Here's what I did to alter the pattern:

I used 30mm Suncatcher Eyes instead of the 18mm recommended in the pattern. I used Scrapbook & Cards today's tutorial to create the crocheted flowers. And obviously I used a different color assortment for the yarn. 

I hope you'll take some time to check out Roxycraft for yourself. And if you make up one of her patterns, we'd love to see it! Tag us on Instagram (@merryweatherscottage) or post a picture here in the comments. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

Happy Father's Day Mousekateers!

Happy Father's Day from Merryweather's Cottage

Tinkerbell Treasure Hunt

For those of you who enjoy finding little goodies to keep your kids occupied during your Disney travels (or to bring a little extra magic to your vacation days), JoAnn's currently has a large selection of Monsters, Inc./University goodies in the $1.00 bins. I was able to find all of these items yesterday at our local store.

1. Fat quarter with Elephants (Animal Kingdom or Dumbo)

2. Monsters Inc. activity book

3. Bruce (from Finding Nemo) snack bin

4. Monsters Inc. puffy stickers

5. Monsters Inc. 3-D drawing pad

6. Small bow & arrow punch (Brave)

7. Monsters Inc. coloring roll & crayons

8. Monsters Inc. double pointed crayons

9. Monsters Inc. pack of 400 stickers

Some of these things will have to be made into other things, or used to create other Disney themed goodies, but all of the Monsters Inc. items can be given as is. GREAT for a long road trip or a daily gift while at the resorts! 

I hope you enjoy your own Tinkerbell Treasure hunts! Let us know if you find any steals in your neck of the woods. And until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!

DIY Finding Nemo Outfit

For our last trip, Happy had completely outgrown all the pants and Ts from the year before. I decided he needed a pair of Nemo pants and a matching shirt for our day in Epcot. One should look his best when he meets Crush for the first time!

As before, and because I love, love, love, this pattern, I made Anna Marie Horner's Quick Change Trousers (size 18 mos. this time). I love how all the seaming gets hidden with the reversible design. And all is not lost if, say, a Mickey Ice Cream Bar gets dropped on them. Just wipe 'em up as best you can, flip 'em in-side-out and carry on: a momma's dream. I found both fabric's at JoAnn's. I think they are both the store brand.

To make the T-shirt, I imported clip art of Dory I found on-line into a Silhouette SD file. The font is Findet Nemo. If you decide to do something similar, remember to reverse the image in the Object > Transform menu (I used "flip horizontally"). I then printed it onto Print 'n Press Iron-on Transfer paper for Inkjet Printers (by june tailor) - don't love the shiny quality of the iron-on, but the transfer was perfect. Next time I would have the Silhouette cut out Dory and I would cut out the text myself before transferring. Live and learn, right? Also, after one washing the image was cracked and wrinkly. If you want the t-shirt to last I highly recommend using Lesley Riley's TAP Transfer Artist Paper. The results of this are far superior to anything else I've tried.

Again, I can't say enough about the Quick Change Trousers. I wash the dickens out of them and they have lasted through two kids! And the more pairs I make, the faster I can whip them up. Definitely a nap time friendly project. Until next time, may all your days be filled with fairy dust!