- Can I crochet an entire plushie using
only items from the dollar store? Today, we're gonna put that to the test
and see if Dollar Tree has everything we need to create a plushie that no one would even
be able to tell is made up of dollar store items. Hello and welcome back,
my beautiful Froggy Army, to another video. And welcome back to another crochet video. I'm very excited for today's video. I feel like it's gonna be a really exciting challenge. But first, to start us off,
we do need to go do some shopping. We can only use materials from the Dollar Tree, so we're gonna need to find a crochet hook,
yarn, of course, scissors, a yarn needle, and hopefully some extra items
to jazz up our plushie a little bit. So without further ado, let's go to Dollar Tree. Dollar Trees are kind of like the wild west. Not every store has the same exact items. And an item you find at one Dollar Tree one day, might not even be there the next time you go,
or at any Dollar Tree you go to in the future. So the items that we'll be able
to find today are left up to pure luck. So we're in our first dollar tree in the craft section, and honestly, this one is pretty small,
so, I'm not seeing too much so far. We do have our scissors,
but I figured these would be easy to find. So we have some little detailing scissors. These will work just fine. They have a few tools, but no crochet hook. This fabric is really cute. I could use this for some sort of detailing
and maybe we find yarn to match these colors. Here's our yarn selection. Not too much to pick from. I think the one that's calling
to me is the yellow, so I'm gonna grab one of those. I also picked up these velvet push pins
that could maybe work as our safety eyes. I figured the best way to get some stuffing
for our crochet plushie was to take some out of an existing plushie. This bunny was one of my contenders, but I
found a bigger gnome plushie in the $5 section. Then I decided I didn't really wanna use
anything from the $5 section, so I ended up going with a bunny
and heading on over to check out. I figured we would have to go to multiple stores
to find everything I'm looking for because that's just how the dollar store is. That's just how Dollar Tree is. You're not gonna find everything in one trip. So all in all, we ended up
with the plushie to sacrifice. I got this really cute fabric just in case,
but I'm kind of doubting that we're even gonna use this. But, hey, I have it. We got the one thing of yellow yarn, although I really would like to use
the little Chenille fluffy yarn that they have. They just only had one color back there,
and I wanted something cuter. And also, we didn't find any crochet hooks, so we need to make sure that we find the right size
crochet hooks that go with the right size of yarn. So we kind of have to see what crochet hooks
we find first to see what size yarn we can get. I got the little push pins, and these can be our safety eyes,
although I do have a backup for those. I'll show you in just a sec. We got the scissors, and they have
plenty other scissors to choose from. These were just the first ones I found. But my backup for the safety eyes and maybe stuffing
is actually this crochet kit that I found. I knew that Dollar Tree carried these, but I had never seen them before until today,
and there was one lonely one left. So this is kind of cheating because this comes with
everything you need to make a crochet plushie. So, like, what's the point of the video? But obviously, it includes everything
to make this unicorn specifically, and I don't wanna make that unicorn. I'm not even gonna bother trying to use this yarn because this looks worse than what they
actually sell there in the dollar store. But it does come with a little
tiny bundle of stuffing. It's probably not enough for whatever I'm gonna make,
and it does come with the safety eyes. They're somewhere in there.
So that is our backup for safety eyes. But they're probably not the size I want anyways,
and it's kind of cheating. So we'll see. I bought it just in case the push pins look horrendous,
but we'll see if we can find other options for that as well. Anyways, let's move on to the next store
and see if we can find some crochet hooks, because that's kind of like our number one thing
that we need, and we haven't found it yet. Heading on into Dollar Tree number two, I had high hopes and expectations as I just
wanted to find some cuter colors of yarn. I made it to the craft section with hope in my heart,
but instead, this was literally all they had. This sad, depressing little box of this fuzzy
yarn that I definitely did not want to work with. They do have these earring findings, which is not relevant
at all to what we're doing, but that's kinda crazy. For the dollar store? Same with these tags.
Oh, my goodness. When I used to sell crochet stuff,
I would have killed to find these at the dollar store. Okay. I also randomly found this,
which is not relevant, but I was like, okay, cute. It comes with a little stand. It looks like there's like a lily of the valley one. I need to find that one. And they have clips in the back so you could put pictures on it. That is so cute. Hello Kitty spotted.
Cute. But I guess something I didn't
think about was using googly eyes. But I'm not really a fan of the googly eye look
for crochet plushies, so I'm gonna choose to not go with those. The only other thing that I found was a little sewing kit, and I'm gonna pick this up just in case I do
wanna use the fabric for something like fabric detailing. I don't know.
I don't even know what we're making yet. We haven't even found yarn or a hook, so I don't know. But I'm gonna get out of here
and we're gonna go to a different one because these craft sections have not been it. Hello, and welcome back to in the car
after the Dollar Tree with Raven. This is so much harder than I thought. All I got from this trip was the sewing kit
just in case we wanna use the fabric, and as I was checking out, I saw one
lonely little embroidery cross stitch kit. And this actually has a yarn needle in there. It's like that little yellow thing right there. I think that's our only chance of finding
a yarn needle at the dollar store because I don't think we're gonna find it again. Anyways, I'm gonna go find another Dollar Tree to go to. I'll see you there. So by the third Dollar Tree,
my hope was beginning to fade. Cute colors of yarn seemed to be my white whale craft section after craft section,
taunting me with ugly yarn or no yarn at all. I did find some crochet hooks,
but I refused to use these plastic ones. They're terrible and they hurt my hands. I was determined to hold out for a better option,
so I left empty handed and determination dwindling. It seemed Mother Nature could feel my pain as
the sky darkened parallel to my fading hope. On to Dollar Tree number four. We struck out once again at this Dollar Tree. Even though I was hanging on to my last sliver of hope. This was all they had in terms of yarn. Same old stuff we've seen before. They did have this cute magenta, but it
wasn't really calling to me for this project. And they had a lot more of this gross, fuzzy yarn. Although I was severely losing energy,
there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Dollar tree number five started to give me hope as I walked towards the back of the store,
my eyes widening as I realized what I was seeing. The biggest craft section I have ever seen in a Dollar Tree,
taking up an entire corner of the store. I was starting to get excited. I just knew we were getting close. But alas, my hope faded as there were no crochet hooks. But they did actually have some yarn, so that was great. It wasn't exactly the selection I was
hoping for, but hey, it was something. I was so ready to go home at this point,
so I just picked up whatever felt good. Like a nice white, this cute little brown tweed, and this vaguely terracotta color
that I swear looks more pink in real life. Finally a success! And now with that, we can head to Dollar Tree number six. Finally, we have had one success,
and we found yarn! I've seen Dollar Trees with better yarn selections
than that, but I have an idea forming in the mind. Now we just need a freaking crochet hook. Hopefully we can find the right size to go with that yarn. I maybe should have picked up the plastic ones, but we'll go to one more Dollar Tree and we'll see. As I entered our final destination, I swore
I could smell the crochet hook in the store. And as I gazed over the craft section, there, I spotted it. Finally!
Now I can go home. I also got this embroidery thread
just in case, but okay, let's go. Once we got home, it was
time to assess the damage. This is everything that we're working with. I accidentally bought two of those yellow yarns. I don't know how that happened. We've got quite a bit of stuff here just
for one plushie and also Pepper photobombed. Here I am just starting off,
and you don't even know what I'm making yet. I haven't even checked in.
I'm so sorry. I really need to work on my communication. I promise I'm gonna be better for us. But these colors were kind of uninspiring for me. I was having a hard time trying
to figure out what to make. I really wanted to make something springy. I really wish I had found pink yarn
or green yarn or something like that. But ultimately, the yellow is what
I was mainly gravitating towards. So I decided at the very least,
I could still be slightly springy. And we're gonna make a little ducky plushie,
but with some extra things. All righty. We're just about at that point where I
would usually start adding safety eyes. So we're gonna figure out
what we're doing with the eyes. We have our velvet push pins,
and I figured I would open up the sewing kit and see if any of the buttons would be cute
or something, even though I kinda doubt it. All right, so we've got safety pins
and little white buttons in here. I definitely don't wanna use those. Awe, baby scissors! That is so cute. Do we have more buttons, or is that it?
Oh, that's it. Okay. All right, well, we're not using that,
so time to bust out these push pins. So, honestly, I am using these
purely as, like, decoration. If you are going to be actually making
a plush from the dollar store and you are going to actually use push pins as well,
please just keep it on a shelf. Do not give it to an animal,
don't give it to a baby, because these will come out, and these
will be very dangerous to use as eyeballs. These are not secure in any way. So if you're gonna use push pins,
put it on a shelf and don't touch it. And these will probably fall out, too, 'cause, like, there's literally nothing keeping it
on the inside there from falling out. You know what I mean?
So this is just for demonstration purposes. But anyways, that's not too bad.
That's not too bad. That kind of gives, like,
an eyeballish appearance. Yeah, I think we can get away with these. They should be fine. And like I mentioned earlier, I do have the backup crochet kit, but I do
feel like it's cheating a little bit still. And I'm trying to see if I
can spot the eyes in here. I can't find them.
They're, like, buried in the yarn somewhere. But, I mean, at least based off of this,
it looks like they would be very small, and I think that they would just look a little
too goofy on this slightly larger size head. So we'll go with the push pins, and that'll be it. And before I finish up the head,
I do wanna add some stuffing to it. So it is about that time for the sacrifice. Now, I do feel something weighted in here, and it's kind of, like, crunchy so I'm interested
to see what that is, but I'm just gonna cut along the bottom and try to do it along the seam
so that I could potentially sew this back up. That way, I don't kinda put it to waste for no reason. I have other spare stuffing
I can use to put in here. Okay, so pulling this out,
this is just a plastic bag of rocks. Oh, it just ripped open. Oh, my goodness. This is so weird. Why? It's just a bag of rocks. It seems like it ripped inside here already. Because there's other ones that are,
like, still loose inside. But what the heck? They sell beads that are specifically
made for weighing down plushies. You do not have to use rocks,
and they're, like, dusty, too. All right.
I don't know if our plushie needs these rocks, so I may just put it back
in the bunny if I sew it back up. Anyways, let's release the stuffing and the little
bit of rocks that are gonna keep coming out. This is definitely, like, the cheapy, cheapy stuffing. Like, this feels terrible. (laughs) Okay. This is most of the stuffing taken out. I'm leaving her head stuffed just because
if I wanna restuff it, that'll be annoying to restuff. So I'll just leave her like that. This is the stuffing and rocks
that we got out of it. Not very much.
Not very much at all. And something I didn't mention earlier, actually, stuffing is pretty optional
when it comes to making a crochet plushie. You don't have to use polyfill like this stuff. You could just use yarn. Like, you can just put yarn inside of it. And I used to do that a lot before I would buy polyfill. Especially if you save your little crochet scraps
from cutting off ends and stuff like that. You can just stuff it with yarn scraps. So if you don't wanna do this,
then feel free to just use yarn. Look at all this rock dust on my freaking mat here. What is going on? Anyways, I actually think this
will maybe be the perfect amount. So we're gonna start stuffing. All right, that's where I'm gonna leave it. I'm gonna continue finishing up this head,
and I'll check back in with you once it's done. I also did wanna mention, please don't roast my outfit. These are my comfy clothes, okay? So I'm chilling and I'm lounging. Anyways, like I mentioned earlier, we're making a little ducky plushie and since we
sacrificed a bunny for this plushie, I figured I wanted to have some bunny
elements also incorporated in here. And the super fun way we're gonna be doing that
with our crochet plushie is to have our little ducky be wearing a bunny hat. Initially, I actually wanted to make a bunny
by itself and give him some little clothes or something, but I actually recently crocheted a bunny,
so I was like, you know what? I don't really feel like doing two bunnies back to back. So a little ducky it is. And that way we utilize the yellow yarn, that way, we have some more color going on in this plushie,
and it feels just a little bit more springy. But here I am finishing up the body of the little ducky. I'm doing another sphere, another ball, but it's slightly smaller than
the dimensions that I've made the head. So, yeah, just stuffing this bad boy up,
and we actually had plenty of stuffing left over. But here we go. Here's the head and the body, and I left them open
so I can just sew them together just like that. Speaking of sewing, now we need to bust
into our embroidery kit for our yarn needle. And, oh, my goodness, this yarn needle. Besties. This yarn needle. This comes with this little,
cheap, plastic, flimsy yarn needle. This thing was so annoying. This was the worst part of working on this crochet plushie. This yarn needle was flimsier than
my nails after a long, hot shower, okay? You know when your nails get all bendy
after a shower, or at least mine do. Yeah.
This thing was really, really annoying. So any sewing I had to do was
just extra annoying to deal with. But anyways, here I'm working
on some little wings for the duck. It's a little ducky. He needs some little wingsies,
so we're just getting those done. I quickly made two, and that's what they look like.
Just pretty simple. And now we're working on the bunny hat portion. I'm actually doing the same dimensions that I did for the head, but with half double crochets instead of single crochets. And I'm only gonna do, like,
half of a circle that way, it's like a little hat. And doing half double crochets instead of single crochets will just make it slightly bigger,
but pretty much fit the same shape as the head. So it's, like a perfect fit for our little ducky's head. So here we go. I also added some little flaps on the sides
'cause I thought that was just a cuter look. And, like you see there, it just fits perfectly. And then I added some little ties on the bottom
so you could tie it under his chin. I thought that was just a really cute
little detail just to make it extra cute. And then with Pepper's supervision,
I got to work on the bunny ears. These are just basically, like, pointy cylinders pretty much, but I wanted to make one, like,
a regular bunny ear that's sticking straight up, and one of them a bunny ear that's kind of folded
over, because I really love that look for bunnies. And here I am just kind of, like,
checking out how it's gonna look. This totally gives me, like,
Louise Belcher from Bob's Burgers vibes. She is definitely, like,
my favorite character from Bob's Burgers, so can't say that I wasn't subtly inspired at the very least. But then we're gonna work on some little middle insert. I don't know what to call this. Like, the pink part of the ear,
the inside of the ear. I thought it would be a nice touch and to
incorporate more of this, like, terracotta yarn. So here I am just sewing that on,
and this was definitely optional. I feel like this gives the bunny ears more of a realistic look, which wasn't really necessary because it is just a bunny hat. So it's not like, actual bunny ears that we're
trying to make on an actual bunny plush. We're not trying to make it realistic, it's just a hat, but. Oh, well, that's okay. So there it is. I was just kind of checking what it was gonna look like,
and I decided to do a super epic transition. Wow, there it is, all sewn together! Next, I just whipped up a super
quick little ducky beak. It's literally just, like, two rounds of making,
like, this little oval shape, and sewed that right on. And then just kind of came up with a random,
vaguely duck webbed feet pattern and just quickly crocheted two of those for some little feet. I used some of that pink embroidery thread
that I picked up for little blushies and just sewed that right on, and I attempted to give our ducky
a little eyeball highlights with some white yarn. It did not really work out,
though, and we'll talk about that. So here is the reveal. Here is how the plushie came out. This is totally freehanded, I don't have a pattern for it. I just made it up as I went along. Some critiques. Number one, the eyeballs were really difficult to work with. They kept falling out. The highlights didn't work because they just
keep falling out and messing up the yarn. I think I could have done something else,
maybe buttons or felt. I didn't even think of doing felt until I was editing this video. I wish I had actually left out the inside of the bunny ears. I think it just looks odd, especially because
it's the same color as the beak and the feet. I feel like it's just a little too much going on,
so if I had left those out, it would have been cuter. Yeah, this was definitely
a really interesting experience. I'm glad that I did it. Honestly, the hardest part of this plushie
was shopping for supplies. That is going to be the biggest struggle
is finding supplies and the availability. If you wanna see more crochet content, I do have some here on the channel so
feel free to check some of that out. Thank you so, so much for watching this video
and I will see you in the next one. (calm music)
