Baby and Toddler update

We got another awesome package from our USA guardian angel Julie this week. And in it were three super cute plushies! This baby blue elephant was for Byron. He's almost 5 months old now. Where did that time go!?

I checked his stats after his 4 month immunisations, and he was only 5cm shorter and 1.5kg lighter than Chelsea was at 12months! He is a BIG Bubba!




He was quite partial to his elephant too! Thank you Julie!




Chelsea got two teddies! She's almost 2 (just a few more weeks), so is a little harder to capture on camera. But here I have a series of blurry photos showing her trying to position her teddies on my new bear shelf. Very cute! I suppose with all of my collection on the upper shelves, she must just think that's what we do with teddies!

My Pug

I did it!

{Happy dance around the room}

I made a pug that actually looks like a pug!



This is the photo that inspired my current pug/puppy obsession. This is Muppet, a friend's pug who recently passed away after living a long and happy life. She posted this photo to facebook and I just couldn't stop looking at it. I'd never really noticed how cute pugs are.




My version isn't as rounded at Muppet in the photo above, I would have loved to have replicate the ball-head thing she has going on, but I'm still pretty damn proud of myself! If you had asked me a year or two ago if I thought I could ever design and made a semi-realistic looking pug, I would have said no way!






Meet 'Miss Muppet'. She is now on bearpile as well. I wasn't sure how much interest I'll get for her but I have a feeling she won't last long. (I am a little torn as to whether or not I should keep her, but we have a vet bill today - see my guinea pig blog for details, if you dare! - so it's probably smarter to allow her to go travel the world!)

Finishing a doggy

The pink puppy is finally finished. He was so much fun to make. I love trying new things, and there were a few new techniques on this big guy.




I decided to give him sculptured polymer clay puppy paw pads, to add a little realism to this pink dog with the blue nose! I think the effect worked really well, and will definitely use this again.





I called this guy 'Boof' and he has just been listed on bear pile if you are interested in him. You can see his vast multitude of photos below... I went a little crazy with the photography! But there are just so many different angles to appreciate him by.





(I especially love his little doggy tail! How sweet!!)

Designing a doggy

I thought you guys might like to see how new designs develop at my place. This is a photo diary of my attempt to design a puppy. I was actually aiming for more of a pug-look, but think maybe I got boxer cross instead!?

For a first blindly stumbling attempt, I'm pretty happy. I'll design this guy a body, then I'll make some (pretty drastic) tweaks to the pattern and see if I can't produce something a little more pug-like! :P

First Birthday Bear

Chelsea and I are going to a first birthday party for a close friend of mine's little girl in a few weeks. The party is 'teddy bear picnic' themed, so I figured a teddy gift would be appropriate!

I sat down a few nights ago and mashed ideas from my one piece bear body design, and my centre-seam magazine bears design and ended up with this lovely lady.

She has safety eyes and no joints, but I did add a few pellets to her body to help her flop, and a bow by her ear. But I think with a bit of supervision, this teddy should be fine for little hands to play with.

My early birthday present

My birthday is (exactly) a month from today. I asked my hubby for shelving for my incredibly disorganised sewing room (aka 'The Emma's Bears Studio'). This is what he built for me! (Thank You IKEA!)

The bears are very roughly positioned at present. I just wanted to get a feel for how much I could spread them out. And we still don't know where to move the big picture stuck behind the shelf at the moment... but it does give you an idea of all the awesome space I have now!


Here is my Reborn monkey 'Ruby' from Judy's Reborn Nursery. She gets a section all to herself!


These are 4 of my bigger collector bears, a Kaygee brown and cream panda bear, a big old-style bear, a gorgeous traditional bear by Jennifer Laing from 1994, and a little Lexie Hamilton brown bear in front.



My two 'Bears of Bath' mini's.



My two rainbow LJ bear and bunny.



My vast collection of bear by Pat Morris!




And lastly, here's a shadowy photo of two of my prized pieces, a Bean Bruins Bunny and a tiny crochet bear.

Ana - 'Elephant' Bear

This is my very last bear in the stunning faux fur I've been using over the last few weeks.



I held back on finishing her, as I was waiting to see how the new painted glass eyes would turn out. I hoped they'd stand out nicely against the multi-tonal fur, and I think they have.



I just love the colour and shimmer on Ana's eyes. I think I could just sit there and paint glass eyes all day. It is so much fun, and such a surprise to see each layer come through and add to the depth and realism of the eye.



'Ana' means elephant in Indian according to a baby-name website I found last night. I thought this worked really beautifully for her, especially after one of the accessories I chose for her was this tiny silver and crystal elephant charm.

(Also, as I mentioned on bearpile, she's just about as fat as an elephant as well, so the name works in multiple ways!)

Painting Eyes

I stumbled across this video on YouTube last week and decided to give eye-painting a go. I purchased two dozen pairs of clear glass eyes, then went down to the shops to search for nail polish in various shades of blue, green, gold and chocolate (interesting colours to source!).



The eyes arrived this morning, so I decided to have a practice run with three of the larger pairs. This is the result I got. I am pretty pleased.




I've gotten a little better as the day has worn on, and some of the pair's I've just finished now are awesome. But you'll have to wait to see them on the finished bears ;)

I really recommend giving eye painting a go if you're like me and have never tried it. It's really quite straight forward, and the results speak for themselves.