The Pony Earflap Hat - Rainbow Dash Edition

For my niece's fourth birthday, I created a My Little Pony Rainbow Dash Hat. I used the basic hat pattern from the Lil' Vampire Hat pattern in Beastly Crochet. I freehand crocheted some triangles and folded them over for the ears. I used yarn from my stash, and made the mane using basic doll hair technique.
I also took longer strands of the same yarn and made the braids. Not too shabby for an improvised design!

3/4 View

The Back

The Side

As you can see, my model was the adorable and placid stuffed Rottweiler my husband got me for my birthday many, many years ago. He's not the most desirable model for a hat, but his head wound up being the perfect size.
Hope you enjoy! She sure did:

Making Something Beautiful

I was having a bad day about a month ago - stressed, anxious, worried - and to ease my discomfort, I decided that instead of dwelling on the negative, it would make me feel a lot better if I created something beautiful.
On my last trip to the grocery store, I found Crayola Dry Erase Pencils, and was so intrigued that I decided to buy them and give them a try. They were almost $5.00 which is quite a splurge for me; I rarely impulse buy.
The basic pack comes with 8 basic colors and a sharpener. The pencils look like color pencils, but are noticeably softer. Also, a warning - due to their softness, they are quite hard to sharpen, even with the included sharpener. If you're able to find a better method of sharpening these bad boys, please feel free to share it with me.
After I had them all sharpened, I created a quick-and-dirty standard artist's bowl of fruit with the fruit I had on hand at the time - which happened to be a lot because, as I mentioned before, I just came back from the store.
Here are my results:

Yeah, I admit - I signed my name to my dry erase board art. Haha!

After a month, it's still up there - a reminder to create something beautiful when I'm experiencing rough emotions. 

Hope you enjoy!