Ah, Chelsea...

Just a sweet little video about poo I thought you guys might like to see! ;)

Verity (previously known as 'pink bear')

She's finally done! And looking so super girly!


I've called her Verity, and I would usually include a link to a bearpile listing here, but she looks to have already found a home. Before her new mummy even saw her final photos too!


I'm really loving her feet. The lavender works so well with this crazy pink. I was a little worried about what accessories would suit a bear in this fur, but the ribbon and butterfly look great.



Chelsea decided she wanted to be in the photo too. (She finally has her cast off now too - it came off yesterday amid many tears! She was really quite brave though. Those cast-cutting saws look and sound really scary!).

Sneak Peek - pink bear's feet

I thought I'd take some progress photos as I painted my pink bear's paw pads. At this stage I've free-hand painted the first paw, and now I'm attempting to get the mirror-image on the other paw. I'm 100% sure there would be easier ways of doing this (ie. templates), but I'm a bit impatient for such planning!



Two paws fully painted in light lavender.



A bit of mid-tone lavender is added for some (really) subtle shading. (so subtle you can't even tell in this photo!).



Then I mix in a bit of violet to get a darker lavender. I'm trying to match the two purples in the teddy's head bow which can just be seen in the first photo.




Using the handle of the paintbrush I decided to do some spots in a tonal pattern to match the spots on the ribbon.




The finished feet. Still wet here, but not too bad considering I was entertaining a two year old at the same time :P

Sneak Peek - pink bear

It seems to be taking me SOOOOO long to do anything at the moment. I think we've gotten past the phase where Byron will happily fit into my schedule. Now he is demanding his own way of doing things. And this has upped my work load just that little bit too much that the bears are now really taking a back seat.

It's exciting watching him become more independent. But also sad. And a little frustrating, because making bears is my stress relief. My 'meditation'. My down time. My addiction.

I feel like an addict that can't get a good fix! :P (probably not the most poetic way of putting it mind you!).

I think trying to make too many bears at once has added to my frustration as well though. I might have to just pull back and finish them

One
By
One.

This is the little lady I managed to get almost finished last night. I actually embroidered that nose freehand while watching TV with Mark last night. In the crappy light of my lounge room too. I am so proud of that funny little nose! These photos were just snapped quickly this morning, so the lighting is Terrible and the colour all distorted - so I turned the full shot into a black and white image so you can see her fur better... I should manage to get her feet finished tonight, which means proper photos and a name tomorrow!

Christmas Treasures

It seems a little too early to be talking about Christmas yet - but I'm hoping this will explain my severe lack of presence online for the last little while... I'm busily working away on my bears for the Teddies Worldwide Christmas Treasures Online Bear Show!

I can't show you what I've been doing, but I can tell you that my theme is Black, Gold and White! My FAVOURITE colour combinations in teddies! I'm so excited about these guys too! But you'll have to wait until November. (Which is good, because they are taking a long time to do! :P)

I can show you the non-bear show bears I've been working on simultaneously though. These guys really will be this bright too... this is some funky fur!

New Plush Piggy

We had a wonderful new arrival of three healthy little guinea pig bubs on Sunday. Meet Mika, Molly and Mason. (I've got extra photos/videos of them on my guinea pig blog if you're interested).

They're arrival inspired me to whip up another plush piggy. This guy is made from a really unusual patchy choc/cream/black faux fur that has a real animal-ish look to it.




I decided to try and sculpt him a nose out of clay because I was never satisfied with how the noses turned out when embroidered. I think I like the clay nose better. It's not exactly like a real guinea pig, but probably as close as I'm able to get with my skill level. And once I figured out the shape I needed, the nose didn't take too long to make either. I had it shaped, cooked and attached in about 30mins. I love it when things just work out like that!

I've called this guy 'Reid', after the daddy piggy of the babies shown above. He's also a donation guinea pig, with $10 from his adoption fee being donated directly to The Cavy Cottage shelter. You can check out his etsy listing for more information.

One Awesome Red Fox

Faux fur fox stole - attempt II

This ball of fluff is actually a piece of crazy red and black faux fur I picked up the last time I was brave (stupid) enough to go to my local fabric store with the kids.

It's really long, crazy scruffy, and the perfect colours to try fox fur stole no. 2.



This is a photo of him after I'd finished sewing, stuffing and trimming last night. During the 5mins of 'free' time I snatched today I managed to sculpt a little black polymer clay fox nose, and plan to attach that and his eyes shortly.

Nova

After pouring a fair bit of love into the blue fox (from the last post), then not being 100% happy with the end result, I decided I needed to make a fantastic bear again. Just to recharge my confidence I suppose.

I decided to finish a big black and red synthetic bear that I cut out just before christmas last year. Fully intending to make him as a christmas themed bear 8 months ago, but running out of energy due to incubating a baby at the time!




As I was sewing him, and had most of his little face looking back at me I knew he wasn't a christmas bear though - he was a valentines bear and he needed to be super cute. I wanted to scissor sculpt his face but am honestly not very good at it (which is why most of my bears have clean shaven muzzles!), so was a little anxious about choosing to use this technique on such a large head. This was at the stage just before the cheeks needed to be shaped and the nose embroidered.

I ended up partly shaping the cheeks. Embroidering the nose. Doing a bit more trimming. Adding the ears. Trimming the cheeks some more. Attaching the head. Stuffing the body and limbs. Yet more trimming/shaping. Closing the seams. Adding a necklace. Final trim. A bit of shading and finally happy! All of that took about 2 days.



Part way through the process I took a couple of photos of the bear with Chelsea, and sitting in her pram to show his size. His head is actually bigger than hers! I looked back at these photos just after I'd shading his nose a few nights ago and really worried that I'd done the wrong thing. He looked really cute without the shading.






Looking at him all finished now though, I am glad I did it. It just gives him that little extra touch of character, and is kind of an inadvertent Emma's Bears signature. I wasn't sure what to call him and got a heap of awesome suggestions on my facebook page. But decided on Nova (short for Casanova) before I read the suggestions. I feel like I need to make another black and red bear just so I can use some of the brilliant suggested names now!



I have just cut out the pieces for a new and improved version of the blue fox stole from my last post, which just so happens to be red and black. Maybe I can steal a name suggestion for him!? I am so excited to get this red fox done. If he comes out half as awesome as he looked spread out on my living room floor this evening, then he is going to be hard to let go!

All in all, I'm really happy with Nova though. Which has meant that I'm pumped to give the fox stole another chance. I wonder if that works the same for other bear makers? Do you find that a less than perfect creation can put a bit of a dent in your confidence?

The Blue Fox

I was asked if I could make a fox skin stole out of faux fur recently. Something I would probably never have thought of myself. And it was just the most awesome idea!



I whipped up a design on sunday using the image I found of a real fox fur stole above. This is my fox half done - no ears, eyes or nose at this stage.



Rhinestones were requested for the eyes, and after a quick trip to my local shops, and one disassembled bracelet later - I had some funky, creepy silver eyes for my fox. His nose is hand sewn black felt in a real fox shape. If I knew how to needle felt this would probably have been easier!



I was hoping he wouldn't come out too 'teddy-like', but I think it was inevitable using this fur. It's a stunning fabric, but not fox-like enough. Meaning this guy looks a bit more like a toy you can wear than a fur stole. Interesting, but not quite what I was going for. If I can find a longer, more foxish fur I will definitely try again though.