Rosebud - the pink mohair rabbit

(Chelsea and her Uncle Sam enjoying MORE food at my Dad's place Christmas afternoon).


How was your Christmas? Ours was CRAZY! Definitely fun, but I am glad it's only a once-a-year event!


In the midst of all the craziness, I managed to get the pink mohair version of my new bunny design completed. It was actually really lovely to sit down with it on Christmas Eve after the house was spotless, the food prepared for the next day and the presents placed under the tree... just listening to Christmas Carols on the TV and sewing away.

I then got another chance to finish her off on Boxing Day after lunch while all of the family sat in our lounge room in air-conditioned comfort half watching the cricket on TV, and half watching the kids exploring their new toys.





So here she is! I've called her Rosebud - for obvious reasons... (I do seem to have a LOT of pink bears in stock at the moment... maybe 2011 was the 'year of pink' for me!?).



I think the mohair works quite well. She doesn't have the same puffy/soft/fat look at the faux fur gave her, but I think it works to give her a more lean/muscular 'wild hare' look.



She can currently be found for adoption on bearpile.

And the show is over!

The bear show is over! I figured out how to check how many views my page had over the course of the weekend as well, and it was close to 4000! WOW! That blew me away.

All up 3 of my 8 bears found new homes, which was better than I had expected. Show's have a funny habit of being quite fickle - one time you might sell out, the next time you might sell nothing. So my three sales were incredible!

The remaining 5 bears are now available for adoption either through my 'Available' page, or through bearpile/etsy over the next few weeks.

Christmas Treasures Bear Show is NOW ON

The Christmas Treasures Bear Show is now on! I've had a good look at most of the bears (between dealing with grumpy children!), and there are some stunners! A few already adopted too, that I was a little disappointed to miss out on! If I'm allowed to have a favourite page, it would be Pearls Bears. Her little creations are so sweet, and so well priced. I think there's only a three left now too!

I can also finally show off all the bears I made exclusively for the show.

Here we have 'Trinket', 13" tall (ADOPTED):




This is 'Dickens', the biggest bear at 22" tall:




This is 'Joy', 16" tall:




This is 'Noel', 10" tall:




This is 'Jingle', 12" tall (ADOPTED):




And these are my 'under $75 bears', all 8" tall and made with floppy mohair bodies and a jointed head:

'Dasher' (ADOPTED):




'Blitzen':



and 'Cupid':



If you have a few moments to spare, the show really is worth a look. There are some incredibly talented people in this world of ours!

Christmas Treasures Bear Show - starts in less than 24hrs!

The Teddies Worldwide Christmas Treasure Online Bear Show PREVIEW is still currently on - and you can still vote for your favourite bear. Actually, you can vote for up to 8 bears from the one IP address - what a great way to spread the love! ;)

The FULL show starts tomorrow, 6am Brisbane time for those local to me. It will continue all weekend, so there's plenty of time to pop in and see what bears are still available. It is going to be a feast for the eyes! And I can't wait to be able to finally show you all the bears I've been secretly working on for months!

Bear show preview!!!

The Teddies Worldwide Christmas Treasures Bear Show PREVIEW is available for your viewing pleasure!!! And - you can vote for your favourite bears. (hint hint! lol)

This is my preview bear Trinket, just one of 8 bears I'll have available during the show.

It has been a crazy-busy couple of months, frantically working behind the scenes getting these bears finished in time (I actually only just got the last three done yesterday!). But in less than a fortnight I'll be able to show you all the gorgeous new faces!

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!

Merry Christmas

After being wiped out by a summer cold and chesty cough, then having Chelsea come down with it too, then having my pelvis seize up and not being about to walk for a good 24hours, this week has been a bit of a bad run! But today was lovely! Mark has finished work for the year, so we took Oliver and Chelsea for a walk through the mangrove board-walk 5mins from our house with the tide lapping at the edge on the walkway, and then spent the evening with Mark's Mum and the amazing street party they put on every Christmas eve. (I also hand sewed a tiny 4" pink and purple mohair baby guinea pig because I 'needed' to create something different, and little! She's very cute, and I'll get photos when I get a chance over the next few days).

I thought I'd share this photo of the three of us as well. Chelsea and Mark have their matching Santa shirts on, and I got stuck with just a stretchy red singlet top (there was no fitting this belly into a normal shirt!).

I'm almost 36 weeks now, and it feels like my bump is all out front. Bub gets the hiccups every day and gives me LOTS of squirms and wriggles when I lye on my side. I'm having fun at the moment imagining what bub will look like, and trying to gloss over how much my life will change with two mini-people in my care. Christmas is a good distraction though, I just keep telling myself to get through Christmas first, then new year... then it'll be time for baby!


Hope you all have a fantastic day tomorrow!!! Eat lots (but don't get sick!) and enjoy watching your loved ones opening presents!

Waffle Bear

If I'm really honest, I would say that I'm feeling pretty crappy this week. I have turned into one of those constantly irritable and grumpy mums who loose it over the smallest things. AND - I've starting having day sleeps, which is HUGE for me. Even in my exhaustion after Chelsea was born I couldn't sleep during the day. I've never been able to, and when I did I ended up waking up feeling worse than when I went down. But the last two days I've had lovely day time naps.

So because of this, bear making seems to be just that little more difficult than usual! The latest bear Waffle has actually been sitting there in pieces for quite a few days now, just waiting for me to get a burst of energy and put him together.








He's another of my 'all-year' Christmas bears, as his christmassy accessories can be removed/hidden leaving just his gorgeous fur (see below).

A Christmas Wish

FINALLY - I managed to get this big guy done! Life really got in the way of my sewing this week! I had visitors, and playgroup break up parties and rum-ball cooking and present buying and storm surviving to do... But last night I got stuck in and got Wish done. It was an interesting experience though as I was getting rather regular braxton hicks contractions the whole time... which continued throughout the night, but seem to have subsided this morning. (My prediction/hope is that this bub is going to come a little early! Maybe not THIS early, but maybe in two weeks or so would be nice...)




So anyways, back to Wish Bear... I'm calling him my 'all-year-Christmas-bear' as he is so subtly Christmas-themed that he really would look fine displayed all year. His fur is a stunning long white faux fur with silver threads - very festive! And I've just popped him up on bearpile too. Now to see if I have the energy to get the next big bear done. (Which is also slightly Christmas themed, so it would probably be a good idea to make him/her before christmas! :P)

I think I have a crush on the postman!

Well... maybe I shouldn't go so far as to call it a 'crush' - but I like him. A lot! He brings me goodies in the mail nearly every week. Mind you, the goodies are only arriving because I purchased them on etsy first! :P

Today we had THREE parcels arrive. I would love to show you photos of the actual items, but most of them are christmas gifts (and some of the people for whom the gifts are intended might read this blog!).


Instead I'll give you the links to these amazing etsy stores so you can check them out yourself. For my fellow Australian's, I have THE MOST INCREDIBLE jewellery you will ever find! Check out this store - Unique Dichroic Glass Creations. My pendants arrived this morning and they are all stunning! They come in little printed paper packets, with little organza bags inside, with the pendant inside that! Beautifully presented for gift giving. They are so much more stunning in person that the pictures show. And they are good pictures!



Next arrived a big box full of these gorgeous handmade pocked mirrors. They are again stunningly presented and just perfect for popping in a handbag. I have a lot of ladies in my life - so I got a LOT of these! The etsy store is called Kailo Chic and she sells a lot of other gorgeous things as well.



And lastly - a bit of a surprise package from Israel. I had completely forgotten this one was coming. I purchased this pendant to wear to my brother's wedding - this weekend! So I'm glad it made it in time. I actually bought it before I found a dress to wear too. Luckily the dress I purchased has some blue on it as well. I think even if the colours had clashed I still would have worn it anyway! It is just gorgeous. I must say though, I LOVE big chunky jewellery. And I LOVE real stones even more! So this was the best of both worlds! There are some other pretty lovely pieces in Mara Joyce Designs store if you wanted to check them out too.

Some goodies to show you all

Just wanted to take the time to show you some of the goodies that have arrived in the mail for Chelsea and I over the last week.






















This is a gorgeous little handmade skirt and top I bought for Chelsea from the 'MadeIt' website. The lady who makes these has heaps of awesome items in her store - Karousel Kids. I also got a very brightly coloured overalls and sun-hat set for the new baby.
















This is a super sweet handmade cloth book I also bought from the MadeIt store 'Creative Wishes' for Chels. Each page has different shapes made into pictures. Chelsea's favourite page is the one with the circle caterpillar (she likes to try and pick off his eyes! :P).























And lastly, I got an awesome surprise package from the runner-up winner of the Onion Skin Twins giveaway. There was a Lithuanian coffee mug, a gorgeous handmade card, a cook book of traditional Lithuanian recipes and the most gorgeous little angel I have ever seen! How brilliant is she!? Chelsea was immediately demanding that I hand her over, but I've decided she's going somewhere safe until we put our christmas tree up. Then she can go right to the top!