I can has: Cookie Hat!

When I first saw Katy Perry's California Gurls video, one of the things that I wanted to have was her cookie hat. I forgot about it until months later, after finishing a commissioned hat, I had a bit of creative burst and decided to make a cookie hat for myself.

Here's Katy Perry in her super cute Girl Scout outfit:


From unicornology.tumblr.com


And here's my own version of the cookie hat:



I used my usual custom beret pattern (I was too lazy to find a different tutorial to make a hat that exactly looks like Katy's hat) and simply added the chocolate bits. I opted not to add sequins (for the sugar detail?) because I don't sequins in general.

My original idea was to have flat chocolate bits, but it looked too boring. So I stuffed some poly-fill in each chocolate bit and - tada! a very cute cookie hat. It also serves as my personal pseudo bubble wrap while working.

Most people thought its a mushroom hat though. OTL Some even thought its a turtle hat. Come on people, when you think about mushrooms, do you first imagine it as light brown with dark spots? Do turtles come in brown shells? Haha. I noticed though that those who first thought that this was a cookie hat were kids, while those who thought it was a mushroom hat were adults. Heh. :3

Maybe I should make myself a mushroom hat *evil planssss*.


If you're interested in buying this hat, please leave me a message! I would love to make one for you! Just leave a message. Thanks!

Commission: Fleece Hat with Ear Flaps

Hello! I recently finished two commissioned hats for my Mom's officemate. Here they are!



Purple


Red

I'm not really sure how these are called - fleece beanies with ear flaps? Haha. I need to do my research. At least I was able to make them exactly as my client described.

I used the basic fleece hat pattern by clearkid (from deviantart), then modified the bottom part to accommodate the ear flaps (apparently, he/she already put up a tutorial for hats with ear flaps. I only discovered this after I made the purple hat). To make the yarn pom-poms, I used a tiny pompom maker device that looks like this:



Photo from shoponline2011.com

I got mine from a local anime convention for only 50 pesos! As for the type of yarn, I use the brand Red Heart since it produces the best-looking pompoms. I believe you can make your own pompom maker with circular pieces of cardboard, but I haven't tried that method yet. I'll put up a tutorial as soon as I get to try that.

Plushies: Bunnies + Jack Frost

When I was in grade school, one of our school projects was to make a pink rabbit plush toy using the patterns and materials supplied to us. I was very fascinated with how plushies are made - I've been somewhat collecting them since I was a kid, and making one was an awesome experience.

Ten years later, I found a DIY Bear pack from Clipper. I made a pair of bear plushies, one for me and one for my bf (no pictures, sorry!). And they were poorly made, haha. But I enjoyed making them, and since then, I vowed to improve my skills in plush making.

I've been making plushies for a while now. I have yet to take proper pictures of the first few decent ones I made, so here's two of my recent favorites:



I made two of these months ago. One to give to a client and the other for myself. My Mom liked how they looked, so she asked me to teach her how to make them to give away for Christmas. I think she made around 40 pieces. She's still making a few more pieces for my grandma (who will give them away as gifts too!).

We think its a perfect gift - its cute, unique, plus 2011 is the year of the Rabbit. Awesome right?


Next is a commission-turned-Christmas gift for a friend. She asked me to make a Jack Frost plushie months ago, but it took me months to finish this. I was still hand sewing stuff back and I had a hard time finding a  good embroidery shop. My usual fabric supplier doesn't have the right fabric color for Jack Frost's outfit too, so meh. In the end, I decided to just give it as a gift.




In case you're wondering, here's the original Jack Frost from Persona 3:




I still need more practice in my plushie-making skills, but I think I'm doing ok! More posts soon!

First Chikara Hats

Whenever I go to anime conventions here in the Philippines, I always see stalls selling chikara hats. I find them really cute. I would've bought one but somehow conventions are always scheduled on the days when I'm broke. Haha. There's a cheaper version of chikara hats though (the ones made with soft felt), but I want the fleece ones since they're soft and are easy to maintain - just throw them in the washing machine and they're good as new.

Being the cheapo that I am, I decided to just make one on my own. I Googled for possible sources locally and by some luck, I found a blogpost about an awesome fabric shop in Divisoria! Days later, I made myself this:



And this,



I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I used a tutorial on making the hat base from Deviantart (I will look for that tut, I promise!) and did the ear pattern myself. They were my first ones and I'm pretty happy with the results.

Here's a pic of me wearing the bunny hat:




I'm currently accepting commissions on these hats (plus some other hats that I will be blogging about in the next few days). If you're interested, just leave a message here or send me an email at madz.nievera@yahoo.com.

Hello World!

Hello! Welcome to DIY Lunacy! This will be my little corner here in Blogspot for all my sewing and D.I.Y projects.

I've been making small accessories and trinkets for a few years now. It started when I was browsing online lolita shops back in college - I wanted to buy a lot of their stuff but my poor wallet cannot buy any of those pretty accessories. So I decided to test my creativity. I scoured for easy online tutorials, picked up a yards of lace and ribbons, and made myself a lolita headpiece.



And another,



then a choker.



A lot of my friends liked my work, some even encouraged me to sell them online (I tried, and failed though. haha).

Back then, I was starting to get into cosplaying as well - a pretty pricey hobby for a college student with a meager allowance. With a bit of creativity and keen eye on detail, I started to play with other materials and ended up making a chest plate and crown for my Princess Emeraude costume.



Right now, I'm mostly making plushies (yes, plushies!) which I will be sharing to you guys very soon! So stay tuned, and thank you for visiting DIY Lunacy!