Pink Halloween Tree – Alien Autopsy Style!

Quote from my mom: “It’s funny. AND YUCKY.”

It’s that time of the year again when Treetopia celebrates its biggest scare-fest! They partnered with 12 influencers – including me! – to join their brand ambassador, Jennifer Perkins, in a very unique influencer- hop. Everyone is decorating a room in their homes with a haunted house theme featuring colored trees and foliage from Treetopia, and you have a few ways to win your very own tree! Scroll to the bottom of this post enter. #TreetopiaScaryRooms

While looking at tons of images of haunted houses, I for some reason got really inspired by a particular Alien Autopsy room and completely ran with that theme.

I had so much fun decorating my 5 foot pink tree with pink lights courtesy of Treetopia. I used little green aliens, medium-sized glow in the dark aliens, assorted green tree ornaments, and I made my own UFOs with pie tins, treat container toppers, flat back rhinestones, and really awesome stretchy mesh tubing! I love the contrast of all the green decorations with the pink tree.

A Closer Look At Our Lab

While I focused on crocheting the guest star of my Scary Room – George, the crocheted, autopsied alien – Manda helped me create the crazy laboratory around him. She started by draping everything with plastic painter’s sheeting to create that “secret pop-up laboratory” look.

Initially, my goal was to crochet a bunch of organs to suspend in jars filled with colored water, but I was really pressed for time, so Manda improvised and started digging around in the kitchen for anything and EVERYTHING to put in our jars.

Me: What’s in the blue jar?!

Manda: KALE. AND A ROCK.

We surrounded our laboratory shelf with a 10 ft. pre-lit white Christmas garland which Manda also decorated with aliens, green tree ornaments, and plastic aliens to coordinate with our tree, because who says labs can’t be festive, too?

The “I.V.” bags are actually something you can water your plants with as you set how much it “drips,” and we just hung them on a silver lamp that I almost gave away because I don’t really use it.

Other things in our jars: jumbo bubble wrap, eggs that Manda drew veins on with Sharpie, Polyfil stuffing, udon noodles, FROZEN CHICKEN BREASTS, a dried up air plant, and 1 actual crocheted organ.

We just bought a new cabinet for our living room to hide our vacuum cleaner in, but it made its debut as our mad scientist storage area including anatomical research photos and other intimidating looking tools we happen to have in our garage at the moment.

George, The Crocheted Alien Who Was Tragically Autopsied But Feels Relatively Okay About It

So, I spent a million hours crocheting this alien autopsy, but I didn’t get great photos of him because he was on my dining room table, and I couldn’t get high enough to get his whole body in the frame.

Win Your Own Halloween Tree!

Giveaway #1: Open to U.S. residents over the age of 18 only. Treetopia is hosting a treasure hunt! Find the Treetopia logo hidden in my photo above, screenshot it, and use your screenshot to enter to win at this link: http://bit.ly/TreetopiaScavengerHunt You can also take screenshots from the other bloggers in the Treetopia Scary Rooms blog-hop! It started on September 23rd and ends on October 10. There will be three winners! You can see the types of trees you might win in their terms & conditions.

Giveaway #2: Open to U.S. residents over the age of 18 only. I am also hosting my own giveaway right here on my blog. You can enter to win the same 5 foot pink tree that I used for my alien tree. It’s the perfect shade of pink and pre-lit with pink lights. I must admit, it casts a pretty eery glow at night. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below. I will choose 1 winner on October 5th, and your tree will be coming from Treetopia! Good luck!! I can’t wait to see your Halloween Trees!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My crocheted freak shake is on the cover of Mollie Makes Magazine, Issue 108! The pattern available inside includes the mug, the donut, the whipped cream topping, the chocolate sauce, and the strawberry skewer.

The magazine commissioned this project from me, and of course I had to say yes! I had no idea it was going to be on the cover, though, so that was really exciting to find out when they sent me a preview of the magazine in July.

If you’re interested in the pattern, you can find subscription and/or download information here: Mollie Makes Magazine Issue 108.

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Take a closer look at my crocheted freak shake and find the pattern in Issue 108 of @molliemakes ! Out now! What hashtags would you use for this? #crochetfood #freakshake #crazyshake #ihaveathingforsprinkles

A post shared by Twinkie Chan (@twinkiechan) on Jul 11, 2019 at 2:10pm PDT

I crocheted some quick and easy bunny-shaped egg cozies for a project I’m doing with the video app TikTok, so I decided to post this pattern for free here for you guys! I don’t have exact yardage, and I don’t have step out photos, but hopefully the pattern is SO EASY that you won’t need much visual help. I hope you have a very Happy Easter! Enjoy!

Materials (contains affiliate links)

• Small amount of worsted weight yarn in pink or white. I used Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice in Pink and White.
• Small amount of worsted weight yarn in brown. I used Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice in Chocolate.
• Stitch markers or a small amount of yarn in a contrasting color
• H/5.00mm crochet hook
• tapestry needle
• small scissors

Easter Bunny Egg Cozy – Body

• With H hook and whatever color you choose for the cozy color, make magic circle, or ch 3 and sl st to 1st ch to form ring.

Rnd 1: Ch 1, 6 sc into ring. Don’t join rnds. – 6 sts

Rnd 2: (2 sc) in each st. – 12 sts

Rnd 3: [(2 sc), 3 sc] 3 times. – 15 sts

Rnd 4: [(2 sc), 4 sc] 3 times. – 18 sts

Rnd 5: [(2 sc), 5 sc] 3 times. – 21 sts

Rnd 6: [(2 sc), 6 sc] 3 times. – 24 sts

Rnds 7-10: Sc evenly around. – 24 sts

Rnd 11: [sc2tog, 6 sc] 3 times. – 21 sts

• Sl st to next st to join. Break off and weave in ends.

Easter Bunny Egg Cozy – Ears (Make 2)

• With H hook and whatever color you’re using for ears, make magic circle, or ch 3 and sl st to 1st ch to form ring.

Rnd 1: Ch 1, 6 sc into ring. Don’t join rnds. – 6 sts

Rnd 2: [(2 sc), sc] 3 times. – 9 sts

Rnds 3-7: Sc evenly around. – 9 sts

• Sl st to next st to join.
• Break off leaving about 18 inches of yarn for sewing later.

Assembly

1. Sew each ear to the top of the body.
2. Use brown yarn and a tapestry needle to embroider any facial features like eyes. I chose to keep mine simple and just make closed eyes.
3. You can make a super cute Easter display or gift by placing two Easter Bunny Egg Cozies (over real eggs or plastic ones) in a little basket with faux grass or excelsior, surrounded by candy!

Download PDF HERE

 

Head:

With Honey and H hook, make magic circle, or ch 3 and sl st to 1^st ch to form ring.

Round 1: Ch 2 and work 10 hdc into circle. Sl st to top of 1st hdc to join. (10 sts)

Round 2: Ch 2, work (2 hdc) 10 times. Sl st to top of 1st hdc to join. (20 sts)

Round 3: Ch 2, [(2 hdc), 1 hdc] 10 times. Sl st to 1st hdc to join. (30 sts) Do not break off. Continue to work in rows for the body.

 

Body:

Row 1: Ch 2 and hdc in same space (go thru both loops to avoid making a hole), 4 more hdc evenly across. (5 sts) Turn.

Rows 2-3: Ch 2, 5 hdc. Turn. (5 sts). Do not break off. Continue to work on one of the legs.

 

Leg #1:

Row 4: Ch 2, and 2 hdc evenly, leaving remaining sts unworked (2 sts). Turn.

Row 5: Ch 1, skip one hdc, and (3 sc) and sl st in last hdc. Break off.

 

Leg #2:

With wrong side of the cookie facing you, insert hook into 2^nd to last hdc of body Row 3.

Row 1: Repeat Row 4.

Row 2: Ch 1, turn. 3 sc in 1st stitch. Sl st in last st and break off.

 

Arms:

Insert hook where head and body join and work moving away from the head.

Row 1: Ch 2 and hdc in same space. Hdc in next hdc. Turn. (2 sts)

Row 2: Ch 2, and hdc in same space. Hdc in next hdc. Break off.

 

Repeat Rows 1-2 on the other side of the body.

 

Weave in all ends, making sure especially that there isn’t a big hole in the middle of the face where your magic ring was.

 

To work the white Icing, insert hook into crotchal area (I find this is the most logical place to hide any inconsistency), and with White, sl st evenly along the edge of the cookie. Exercise control while you sl st around. These sl sts should NOT warp the cookie in any way. If your cookie is starting to curl inward, you are sl st’ing too tightly or too far apart. You do want the sl sts to look as uniform as possible. When you go all the way around and get back to the crotchal area, I cut the yarn and just pull the tail all the way up and out of the top of the cookie and then use a tapestry needle to weave it back down to the back of the cookie to tie off and weave in the end. I think this looks more clean than breaking off the normal way, but you can figure out what works best for you, too.

To work the Smile, use Pink and sl st evenly along the spaces between Rnd 2 and Rnd 3 of the head, which form a perfect smile guide. Break off and weave ends into the back of the cookie.

 

Glue on eyes and pompoms!

If you’ve been following my social media at all, you’ll know that I designed and crocheted this little pastel gingerbread village for my local yarn shop, ImagiKnit, here in San Francisco. With a full-time job, I definitely would not have been able to pull this off without help from two of my trusty crochet elves and my bff. It was a team effort! And we made a village!

Here’s a video of it in action, because the coolest part of the display is the yarn-bombed electric train!

The little people/elves that inhabit this village were heavily inspired by Mochimochi Land’s gnomes. I made little wire stands for them so that they could stand up in the display.

Manda helped me lay out the village, and we decided that a Big Tree in the center would be perfect. Time was really not on my side, so while I would’ve loved to crochet a tree, I decided to yarn-wrap a styrofoam cone instead. Still cute!

And no snowy village is complete without abominable snowmen or yetis! This pattern is based on the Abominable Snowman crochet class I have on Creativebug, but this one is a bit smaller and constructed slightly differently. While I was taking photos of the window, a woman and her son were watching the train go around. When her son realized that the monster was eating a person, he said he didn’t like it! Sorry, kiddo!

I hope that if you’re a Bay Area local, you’ll get a chance to stop by ImagiKnit. If the train isn’t going, just ask them! I’ll provide links to various crochet patterns in this project in the next few blog entries.