Three new HUGE bears, a Birthday Party (and a bear show!)

In the last few weeks we have been CRAZY busy! Firstly, I decided (in my infinite wisdom) to create three more HUGE 21" bears in the same pattern as Samson (see last post). But this time using a few different faux furs. The two bears shown below are made in some fur I had lying around in my personal stash - something a little different to the fabrics I have been working with from our Fur Addiction store for the last year or so. They've come together quite nicely in panda form - see Sequin above and below, and in dark-head, light body form - see 'Schubert' far below.

We gave Sequin some shimmery green glitter detail to match in with her vibrant hand-painted and sculptured eyes. The crazy-green bow helps to bring it all together too. Sequin is currently available in our etsy store. 

This is Schubert. He got over-sized eyes to give him a different look again. He is actually quite soulful, and it's hard to take your gaze from him when you're in the same room.

Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.... lol

And this is Hazel. I hadn't made a bear example in our 'Toasted Marshmallow' faux fur yet - so thought I'd take on the challenge of a bigger bear. It's actually turned out quite well too. It's not as fluffy of a look as the previous fur fabrics, but just gives her a neater over-all appearance.

Hazel also has hand painted eyes in a hazel green-gold (hence the namesake! lol), and big detailed and shaded paws. Hazel is also available in our etsy store. 

And because it's always so hard to see how big bears actually are in photos - I decided to brave a photo of myself with Schubert. These bears are big. And chunky!

The three bears together. 

So, the other part of the reason that we've been so busy over the last few weeks was that we were prepping for a doll and bear show again. We don't tend to do a lot of these, mostly because we aren't brave enough to take Byron and Chelsea with us (and babysitters can be a little hard to come by). But this show was 2mins down to road from Nonna's house - so it was like it was meant to be! The kids got a day with one of their most favourite people in the world, and we got a day meeting and greeting fellow bear crafters. 

It turned out to be quite a rainy day (again! The rain hasn't really stopped here in Brisbane since I last posted!) - so we didn't get a heap of visitors. But we were still kept very busy with lots of questions about the bears, patterns and fur fabrics.

We actually only just collected our latest shipment of faux fur from the port of Brisbane two days earlier as well! You can see some of the new colours in the photo below. But THAT is a whole other post that I'll put together for you guys in a few days. Watch this space for lots of photos of some VERY colourful fabrics!

The OTHER big reason we've been so busy since our last post was that we've been celebrating our 'baby's' 2nd birthday! Byron turned TWO on the 1st Feb. It doesn't seem like 2 years ago that he made his way into the world... but it is. He's a big boy now to prove it!

I attempted to make him a sponge cake in the shape of a car.... it ended up more like an eggy chunk of pudding slathered in icing and sprinkles. Byron still ate it. Well... he ate the icing anyways! lol

(and yes - it does look like he has three candles! One of them was supposed to be a sparkler candle... but it didn't work. So we lit him two normal candles as well. I realised AFTER the photos that this is probably going to be really confusing for him when he looks back on these photos as a grown up! lol)

Big sister Chelsea watching on while Daddy (Mark) cuts the first piece. And below we have the aftermath... 'let me wipe my hands on your dress mummy'!