Ami Amour

Hey guys, I just came back from Anime Expo and had such a blast! This year I didn’t have as much inventory as I would have liked (wedding planning sort of derailed it), but I did get to bring a Giant Totoro amigurumi crochet plush I made.

It took me about a month working on and off on it. I would say a good weeks worth of crochet in terms of hours. He took about 30 pounds of polyfill stufffing and approximately 20 skeins of yarn (it may be more, I lost track after a bit!)

Here’s a picture of our table at artist alley with my good friend Vincent.

Something new for this year, I got a good turning display for my photo prints of my amis. It was a steal of $5 at a yard sale, score!

I also got to cosplay as Miku again as well as Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. I definitely caught the cosplaying bug now!

A customer commissioned me to make a Snorlax with an apple on its head for her hat.

Some cool items at the expo:

And finally here is Totoro on his adventure to Anime Expo where he met some wonderful friends along the way and saw some crazy sights!

Reunions with fellow Studio Ghibli friends and some fun conversations!

And then somehow he got transported inside the new Studio Ghibli game.

He also ran into some new friends along the way.

And finally we say Goodbye to Anime Expo as Artist Alley closes and we pack up and head out.

Thanks all for visiting my table! And thanks to Jamie and Eric for photos and taking Totoro on a tour. Thanks to Vincent, Hannah, David, and my sis for helping out with the table!

If you have any cool photos of Totoro, please do send them my way at amiamour@gmail.com.

Wow I can’t believe AX 2011 just flew by like that. I’ve been pretty bad with blogging while preparing for Fanime and Anime Expo this year, but hopefully this summer I can remedy that.

This year at AX it was all about Miku Hatsune of Vocaloid. My only regret this year (well in addition to not stockpiling enough amigurumis) is that I didn’t make a Miku doll this year to add to craze of Mikunopolis. For those of you who don’t know, Miku is an idol from Japan, except for that she’s not real. She’ll hold concerts but she’s like a hologram, but everyone acts like she’s real and she dances and sings like a real idol. You can check out one of her live videos here where she’s singing her famous song: World Is Mine. I was lucky enough to snag a Miku Concert ticket thanks to a friend of mine (thanks, James!).

I will say though that I did cosplay for the very first time. It came sort of as a random accident. I was listening to a Miku playlist on YouTube when a thought came to me, “hmm her outfit doesn’t look that difficult, I have a black short skirt and a vest already,” I also thought madly to myself, “And I’ll just crochet my blue wig!”

And I did. Which you can see here along with free anime eyes from JList, haha. Thanks for posing in it for me, Jamie.

Unfortunately I only had 2 skeins of yarn and ran out so her long hair was cut short. My sister complained so much about that and would not allow me to wear my crochet wig. She actually thought the wig was so bad that at AX she bought me a real Miku wig! Thanks Sis, I owe you one! You can see my new wig here, big improvement ^^.

While at artist alley too, there was a cool balloon guy and on my way back from the bathroom, I saw his booth. He had just completed creating a Miku balloon and they asked me to pose with it! They asked me what I thought of it and I replied jokingly, “It looks like me. Great job!”

Anyways onto my plushies, the real reason you read my blogs ^^. We had the debut of Henry’s Onigiri Bandits! Aren’t they adorable? I also had some Pokeballs that sold out real quick (wish I had made some more!). It was also most difficult to part with Jiji as it was my first sample.

I’ve had an unfinished Squirtle for a while. A girl came up and said I’ll buy it if you put eyes on it. Done! And so I said good bye to Squirtle.

Someone also purchased some “hentai” from me as seen below. More on that story later.

When all was done, we had to pack up and go. Luckily setting up and tearing down was an easy go this year thanks to the wagon I purchased.

Anyways, check out some of my swag I got. A lot of Kitty love.
Got a huge Hello Kitty bag for free. I’ll figure out how to use it later.

Signed Miku poster by talented artist Henry Liao.

And finally one of my purchases at AX, a Nyan cat T-shirt! My cat Mikey seems to like it too!

Thanks goes out to my sis, Jamie, Vincent, missy42 for helping me man the booth! Also more thanks to Sandy and Jamie my makeup stylist for the Miku look. Love you guys!

I came across a fantastic idea for fundraising for the Japan earthquake tsunami relief. Claire over at Curiously Crafty Creations developed an amigurumi crochet crane pattern to help fundraise for Japan. All donations from the patterns go directly towards the American Red Cross. We’re trying to get 1000 patterns sold as well as create 1000 amigurumi cranes to sell. You can read more about the story here.

I’ve already purchased the pattern and I’ve created my amigurumi crane which I’m putting up for sale on my Etsy shop. It’s not much, but hopefully with the combined efforts of everyone in the project, together we will be able to make a sizeable donation to help out Japan.

If you crochet, you can help out in the effort by purchasing the pattern from here, and blogging about it:

Crane Amigurumi Pattern

There’s also a very cute knit pattern available from Survival Knitting, which is also part of the 1000 Amigurumi Crane Movement. It’s even stackable!

Knitted Amigurumi Crane Pattern

Everybody else can help out by purchasing a crane.

Here’s my crane in the making and finally the finished product.

You can purchase mine at my Etsy Shop to help out Japan. It’s available for $15. All proceeds will go directly to Japan Red Cross and I’ll even throw in a free gift – one of my small slimes ^^. Drop me a line and let me know how you guys are helping out.