Crochet Sushi Magnets

I have been wanting to make crochet sushi for quite some time, but I couldn't think of a good purpose for it.  A sushi plush could make a cute pillow as seen here and here, but those projects would take a long time.  Finally, inspiration hit, and I decided on making sushi magnets.

I got a free basic pattern from Vach, but I modified it for my needs.  I would like to make other types of sushi at some point; however, I wanted to stick with the basics for my first sushi crochet project.

I changed colors and counts to make the types of sushi I wanted.  Some pieces are smaller and max out at 18 SC, while the bigger pieces max at 24 SC.  Another modification from the free design was to reduce the number of rows.  The larger number might make more sense for a piece of sushi that is play food, but not for something sticking off of a refrigerator. My larger pieces have 1 more row than the smaller pieces, so that they are balanced in size and shape.

After crocheting my sushi pieces, I stuffed and sewed them together.  Finally, I added a magnet to the bottom of each piece.

Here are some of the magnets displayed on the front of my refrigerator:

I had fun making these magnets, and I made several sets of them.  So many in fact that I gave some away and bundled some of them up

and added them to my brand new Etsy shop SpareTimeYarn.  I didn't really know how to price them, so if you are interested, the prices are as set OBO.


If you are a fan of homemade magnets, then you should check out some of my other posts on magnet making:

• 8-Bit Mario Magnets
• 8-Bit Wario Magnet
• Angry Birds Magnets  

Update: this post was featured on Navy Wifey Peters' Submarine Sunday #43 

Update: this post was featured on OhMy! Creative's Whimsy Wednesday roundup! 14 Colorful DIY  Craft Trends

8-Bit Wario Magnet

I originally had some other posts in mind for this weekend, but I got busy with prep for trial week, so I didn't end up finishing any crafts this week (or even posting on Sunday) So, I am a day behind and digging into my stash of crafts I haven't yet shared.  Thus, this week I shall share my 8-Bit Wario.

There's no 8-Bit Wario you say? Well, there is now. Behold, 8-Bit Wario!  Feel free to copy my pattern.

Here he is all melted and mingling.

In case you missed it, here is my 8-Bit Mario Magnets post.


 Update:  This post was featured on House of Hepworths.

Angry Birds Perler Bead Magnets

I had a very busy week, so I never finished the bear and I skipped out on the baby shower, so I haven't posted those projects yet.  Yesterday, I had an urge to work with perler beads again, so I did several projects with them.  Today, I am sharing the Angry Birds Magnets.

I didn't find many perler patterns for Angry Birds.  I used patterns for the pigs and red bird, and I looked at the online images of the game for the other birds that I made.

I am including the pics of the unmelted perler beads for the patterns.  I thought about making some sort of graph for my own patterns when I did the Mario post, but I wasn't able to figure out a good (i.e. quick and easy) way to do it.  If the images are too small for you, you can increase the size.  I hit command and the plus sign to increase the size when using Firefox on my Mac, but yours may be different.

The only pattern I completely followed is the pig, and only for the first one that I made.  I ran out of the dark green, so I substituted a different green for the second one.

I didn't have enough black perler beads to outline the red bird, so I had to improvise and change it a little bit.

The following birds are my own patterns.

Yellow bird:

One of my nephews is a huge Angry Birds fan, and I recently learned that he likes Angry Birds Space a lot, so I wanted to also make him some Angry Birds Space magnets.

Angry Birds Space blue square bird:

Angry Birds Space green spotted bird:

After I put the beads on the boards, I melted the beads together.  To melt them, I put wax paper over the pattern and used an iron on medium heat.  This time I melted both sides.  I didn't melt the visible side as much as the side that would be hidden.  After the beads were melted and cooled, I used my hot glue gun to add magnets to the back.

These magnets were easy and fun to make.





While I had the perler beads out, I also made a Mario and Wario for one of my other nephews.  I had to make my own Wario pattern, and I will share it sometime soon.  I also made some cute floppy discs that I will share in a upcoming kawaii perler post.

8-Bit Mario Magnets

I saw these coasters on Pinterest, and I thought they looked like fun.  I looked at Etsy for coasters and other household items made out of perler beads, and I thought it might be fun to make my own.  Instead of making coasters, I decided to make Mario magnets.  My husband is a big Mario fan, and we like to play Mario games together when we have spare time, so I went with that theme. (There are lots of other perler options, like Zelda, Dr. Who, and Star Trek.)

I obtained some perler beads from Target, and got to work.  The boards that came with the beads were smaller than the examples I found on Etsy, so I changed the patterns to fit the boards.  I plan on adding easy to follow patterns for the ones I created later this week.

My husband really liked the Mario patterns, so we went to Joann's today and bought bigger boards and more colors.  The beads I bought the previous day didn't have all of the colors I needed to create some of the Mario characters.  With the bigger boards, I was able to just look at examples on Etsy and recreate them.  I won't be sharing those patterns because they are not my own, but I will link to some of them.   There are so many options, and it's easy to work from the finished example if you magnify the image.

Supplies:
-perler beads & peg board
-patterns
-magnets
-glue gun & glue stick (if magnet isn't sticky enough on its own)
-iron
-wax paper

Directions:
Step 1: Find patterns you want to recreate and buy corresponding perler beads and boards (or use what you have).

Step 2: Place beads on your board according to your pattern.

Step 3:  Heat iron to medium.  Once the iron has warmed up, place wax paper on your bead project and then put your iron on it.  You want to leave the iron on the beads long enough to fuse the beads, but not so long that you are melting the plastic boards.  The directions recommended 10-30 seconds, but it took significantly longer than that to make sure all of the beads were uniformly fused.

Step 4: Once your project has cooled, place a magnet on the back of it.  I used the stick-on magnets, but they were not sticky enough, so I used a hot glue gun to make them stick.

Here are some examples of what they look like unfinished:

Now, for some closeups of the finished magnets:

(This project was featured on House of Hepworths.)