My new class is now live on Creativebug: Bag Charm Party! (affil. link)

I have been super into making bag charms for myself and my friends, especially once I realized that basically anything can be a bag charm. You can use any art/craft medium to make one, whether you like crocheting, sculpting, beading, embroidery, or sewing, and you can also use treasured trinkets!

I’ll show you how to make 25 different charms. We’ll explore Perler beads, Shrinky Dinks, beads, turning plastic toys into charms, making little faux candy bag shaker charms, a little bit of macramé, just so much fun stuff to make your bags and backpacks the cutest ever!

Also, you don’t have to be an expert in anything. All the charms are super approachable. Honestly, I had never really played with Perler beads before, and they are SO COOL. You might find your new favorite craft!

Did you know that you can use hot glue kind of like resin to “cast” really cute medallions with beads?

Or that you can turn hot glue into little charms? This is a class you don’t want to miss. And crocheters: don’t worry. I also talk about 2 ways to turn your small crochet plush into charms.

But I encourage you to also play outside of your usual craft. I love a small project like a bag charm to provide a nice break from all the crocheting I regularly do. Plus you’ve got your gift-making set for at least the rest of the year. Click to make some bag charms with me!

As part of Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas,” the television channel and Warm Up America! have teamed up for the Stitched with Sweets initiative to create fun and cozy scarves to donate to women’s shelters. The network has also donated $10,000 to the Foundation to support the charity.

I designed the scarf patterns and instructions inspired by Hallmark Channel’s “Countdown to Christmas” theme and color palette: mugs of hot cocoa decorated with candy canes and hearts. I also wanted this campaign to be as accessible as possible, so I created an alternate scarf design with more basic rectangular sections. With both of these patterns, you can make a whole scarf to donate or even just sections, and Warm Up America! has volunteers to help seam the pieces together.

For knitters, my friend Candace of Yarn Puffy “translated” both patterns to knit.

You can find all the free patterns, an instructional YouTube video for the crochet mug scarf, and the address to send your donations to at WarmUpAmerica.org. The deadline for items is February 14, 2024.

Happy Easter! Last year, I started seeing pictures of people’s Easter lamb cakes on Instagram, and my favorites are the ones that might count as a cake fail. Melty faces. Demonic eyes. Heads that have fallen off. I love them all! You can see my real one below.

Get the crochet pattern in my Etsy shop as well as my Ravelry shop.

After baking a real one, I realized that my pattern is pretty big and round and chunky. I might make a slightly more realistic crochet version next year 😛. Mine still makes me giggle whenever I walk by, though! Okay, here’s the one I baked. I used a sour cream pound cake recipe and Dolly Parton’s buttercream frosting. I found a set of edible sugar flowers on Amazon.

I recently made a little present for my Secret Santa gift exchange at work, and I wanted to include a handmade card. I used a little Christmas tree appliqué from my Gingerbread House Tissue Box Cozy pattern and decorated it with tiny pompoms. For a little bit of extra something, I painted some snow in the background with white watercolor, and I wrote my note on the back in gold paint pen.

I couldn’t decide if I liked the card or not, but I really loved making little trees! I made some in a few colors and sizes and lengths, and I decided to share this tree pattern for free here for all your holiday card making, garland making, gift-topper making, ornament-making, and more!

If you scroll down below, you can see that I also gave you the pattern for the thinner tree so you can play with variety. Once you get the general hang of the pattern, you’ll see how easy it is to change it up and get really creative. Don’t forget to tag me @twinkiechan on social media so I can see!

I recently got this sketchbook to use while filming some new Creativebug classes next week. I liked the pink cover and that the cover was stiff. I also liked the gold spiral, but I did not like the text that was on the cover.

I decided to crochet a patch or appliqué to cover up the text. It was hard to decide what to make! At first I was going to crochet a strawberry, then I decided to do a multi-scoop ice cream cone, then I thought I might do a crochet Burn Book… and somehow I ended up with a happy little frog.

It’s a super easy pattern. It’s basically a circle with some eyes and legs. I loved how it turned out, and I know you’ll find a lot of fun uses for this pattern, too.