Earth Air Fire and Water!

I was sewing up seams this morning, wondering what on earth I was going to name these 4 bears when I had a moment of inspiration! There were four bears, in appropriate colours... why not use the 4 elements as inspiration!!

And so we have 'Gaia' our earth bear - made in the bright green ('Green-Eyed Monster') and hot pink (Perky Pink) imported luxury faux fur fabrics. I liked the idea of the pink/green symbolising a fertile 'earth' blooming in greenery and flowers.

(The pattern for these guys is NEARLY finished! So as soon as it is I'll link the listings for the kits as well.)

Then we have 'Delaire' our air bear - made in the bright green and sky blue (Wild Blue Yonder) faux fur fabrics. Delaire's name is English in origin and means 'of the air'.

Then there was 'Naida' our water bear. Naida is made in the sky blue faux fur again, but this time paired with our rich purple (Purple Rain) faux fur. The colouring/tone of the purple is a little off in these photos - the contrast has made it look more like an inky indigo blue - but it's definitely purple in person.

And lastly, the rather bright 'Safara', our fire bear - for obvious reasons! Safara is made in our bright orange (Fantango) and hot pink faux fur fabrics which really do pair up beautifully! Her name is African in origin and means 'fire'.

You might need your sunglasses for these bears!

I had this BRILLIANT idea on the weekend just gone that I would make some new kit bears, as I haven't done this in quite a few months.

So I sat down with some of the special designs of mine that I'd been holding back from turning into PDF patterns for our store, and chose a select few to work with. This pattern here is one of my all time favourites. It makes up to a long, bendy/curvy 21" bear with the sweetest little face no matter what you do with it!

I sent the hand drawn pattern off to our graphic designer earlier this week, and we should hopefully have a professional PDF version of the pattern to release for sale by the end of the weekend - all going well! Hopefully in time to release these new brightly coloured bears I've cut from the same pattern.

I've gone with 4 colour mash-ups that I think work really nicely in our imported luxury faux fur lines. We have a lime/pink bear, a blue/purple bear, an orange/pink bear and a lime/blue bear.

There are other combos i think would also work - purple/pink or pink/blue for example - but I was too lazy to make 6 huge bears at once!!!

I've just finished filling each bear with glass beads and stuffing, and will close the seams and add the finishing touches tomorrow! I can't wait to show them off. I think these guys would make a stunning asthetic addition to a child's room (not so much as a play-thing though), or as a mood-brightener in an otherwise more neutral toned collection!

Watch this space for the finished collection! :)

Maia, my first Tissavel fur bear

It took a little while to get this big fluff-ball done as the kids have been a little more demanding lately. Nothing I can really put my finger on, but the days have been long, and the crying has been synchronized!



But here she is in all of her Tissavel fur gorgeousness. I am seriously in love with this fur. It honestly is the softest faux fur I've ever worked with - and the backing was incredible. No stretch or fraying, and very strong.

I've called her Maia, and she's currently available on bearpile and etsy.




This is what her fur looked like pre-bear. A stunning zebra pattern. I wasn't sure what this would look like made-up, but it really has come out beautifully. I've got my last piece of this all ready to go for a slightly smaller bear like Maia, but I do have some of this exact same fur in the 'snowleopard' spotted effect for sale in my etsy store...





This is what the snow leopard fur looks like, exact same pile, colouring - just a different print. I can't wait to use this one too. The spots will probably look even better than the stripes.



This fur can be purchased here, starting from cut pieces at 1/8m, going up to full 1m lengths. I hate paying postage when I order items online, so I've capped all postage in my esty store at a maximum of $10. This means you could purchase my ENTIRE STORE full of bear supply items for no more than $10 postage - any where in the world!

Kalli, and her awesome fur!

I don't know if you guys have visited my etsy store lately... but it's kind of blown up out of control! lol.

We're currently in the process of sourcing the best, most unusual and highest quality fur fabrics from around to world for our uses, and for supplying to other bear makers and crafters.

At the moment we don't have a great deal of stock (mind you, it certainly looks like we do with wall to floor storage in the craft room!), but the pieces we have are lovely. This is one of the more unusual faux furs that I found in my 'travels', and I've called it 'Berry Mash'. It's also the fur I used to make little Miss 'Kalli' below:





I wasn't sure how well the fur would work out as I don't use faux fur on the bears that often. But this stuff worked amazingly. It has a slight stretch, as most knit-back pieces do, but I didn't line it and you can see that she hasn't distorted at all.



Kalli has already found her new home, but if you'd like to have a play with some of this funky 'Berry Mash' fur, or any of the other pieces we have in stock, you'll find them all HERE!

Rhody and Roseclere

Feels like I've been working on these two bears all week! Which I probably have been... lol. Meet 'Roseclere' and 'Rhody'. The last two bears made from the piece of choc tipped white faux fur I scored at the Beary Cheap warehouse last month!



They are a bother-sister duo, and their names both mean rose, to correspond with their antique-gold tone rose pendants.



And despite the fact that I used the exact same patter, the exact same fur, the same paw pads and eye size - the different eye colour and shading details have really given them both their own look.



And it's at this point that I normally give you a link to their adoption listings... but they've actually already been snapped up, and will be on their way to their new home very shortly!

Marshmallow (and Chelsea!)

This is my latest creation - 'Marshmallow'. Quite appropriately named by Mark! [Please Note: Marshmallow is now SOLD]

He is made from one of the last pieces of this stunning choc-tipped faux fur that I had left. I do have some of this same fur in a pink tip, and a violet tip in my etsy store though, if you're looking for something similar.




Marshmallow has a needle sculptured face... which I did whilst chatting away to my mum last week during one of her visits. I even surprised myself at how it turned out... especially considering I was talking and cutting at the same time. Maybe I really can multi-task!?

When I was getting his photo's, Miss Chelsea (now 2 1/2yrs old!) decided she wanted to pose with him. Once upon a time she made the big bears look big... now they look quite petite sitting next to her!



Marshmallow looks out through a pair of my hand painted eyes too. I just loved the depth of colour against the lighter fur. I have just recently added a new batch of 20+ pairs with some new colours (ice blue, purples, silvers, black etc) in my esty store as well. These are more of the bigger size (10-14mm), so have some very nice definition and detail.

Plush Piggies

Yesterday's activities included whipping up three more plush guinea pig mum-and-bub sets. I just love mixing and matching all the different colours and textures of the faux fur, and coordinating with all thew gorgeous cotton print fabric I have in my stash! This set (cream/brown) has already been claimed, but the black/white/pink set and the purple tone set below are currently on etsy.




I also made some improvements to the original design. These ones now have colour-matched velcro straps to help hold the bubs snuggly in place, and to give the mumma pig a more 'guinea pig' shape when her bubs are out and about!







The black, white and pink mum and bub set below can be found in my etsy store.


As can this purple set. (I really love the colours on this one actually).

The fox stole returns

Some of you might remember my adventures with designing/creating a realistic looking, yet obviously fake fox fur stole back in August last year. This was the final design - long, funky black and red fur.

The fox was the brilliant idea of my sister, who had the occasion to actually wear it recently! And oh my goodness - doesn't it look so perfect atop her shoulders. Like it was made for her ;)

Orangutan

I was recently commissioned to make a child safe orangutan for a little boy's first birthday coming up.

I've never made anything remotely like a monkey/orangutan/ape... and the facial/head structure is quite different to that of a traditional teddy. But I figured it would be fun to try. And I even had the perfect faux fur in stock left over from making my long haired guinea pigs! This is what the head design looked like when I'd turned it out for the first time. I was getting a little excited by this stage! It's so rewarding to see all the concentration that goes into a pattern actually turning out like you anticipated!


He needed some stuffing though, so I could make sure the face was actually going to work - this is him before he got his nose, mouth and ears.



Then with all final details in place, he's looking decidedly orangutan-like. And I'm quietly quite chuffed! (I did have one moment of panic when the thought 'I wonder if orangutan's have tails?' popped into my head half way through - but a quick google searched confirmed that they do not!)