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'!

Byron's Octopus

This is the result of my toy-making adventure, attempt no. II. It's still basically an octopus. Only with longer, individually sewn legs this time, that I've left quite floppy. This gives Mr Octopus a lot more movement.



Of which Byron seems to respond to really well. The long crazy legs also seem to be quite useful for chewing on! So, at this stage the new toy is ok, but definitely no 'Mr Elephant'. We'll see how the relationship between boy and octopus develops over the next few months though...





Oh - and just because I know you guys appreciate cute fluffy things - how gorgeous is this Koala mum and baby we spotted at my mum's place today. They are so lucky to get these incredible creatures sleeping only a matter of metres from their house!

Can I do it again!?

Byron is 8 months old now and just starting to figure out how to get what he wants. A lot of the time he wants what Chelsea has. And vice versa. Pretty normal behaviour, but pretty exhausting when it happens constantly, ALL day! His latest target has been Chelsea's most beloved 'Mr Elephant' that I made for her (exactly) a year ago. Every opportunity that Mr Elephant is left unattended, and within reach, Byron snatches him and starts munching away! Needless to say, Chelsea does not handle this very well at all!

Mr Elephant comes with us everywhere. Chelsea sleeps with him, travels with him, plays with him, and is comforted by him. In fact, there are some situations when only Mr Elephant will comfort her! Not even a mummy or daddy hug will do!







I don't know what it is/was about the home made elephant cushion that became so magical for Chelsea, but with the current squabbling over him, it is time to try to work the magic again for Byron.




This was attempt no. 1. An 'octopus'. Lets just say it kind of looks more like a mutant flower with eyes! :P Byron doesn't mind it. But's it's no 'Mr Elephant'.
So I'm going to try again with a less bulky design. Fingers crossed there's still a bit of magic left!

Beres - the second pink bear

Meet Beres!

The second, and last of the two pink bears I was able to squeeze out of the piece of crazy fur mum gave me for my birthday back in July.



I did question whether or not a bright pink bear could actually be a 'he', but look at that little face. If that's not the most handsome little man than I must be getting a bit confused! Plus - he has a blue bow. That's all the masculinity he needs ;)



I actually finished him last night, but like to photograph my bears in the daylight. So first thing this morning (after breastfeeding Byron, cooking up porridge for all of us, trying to get more porridge into their tummies than the floor, having to clean 80% of the porridge from the floor/table/high chair/clothes, changing two very soggy nappies and soiled PJs, and then grabbing a quick shower myself), I finally got a chance to pop outside with Beres. Thankfully the weather was behaving for me, and we got some nice true-colour shots. He can be seen on my Available page now too.

This was my audience while I posed and snapped away. (Oh, and yes, Chelsea has a cast again. She'd had the previous pink cast off for about 2 weeks when she and Oliver were messing around on the trampoline and he knocked her off - quite badly breaking her arm this time. I knew immediately - her arm was in a zig-zag formation! She had snapped the top arm bone clean away from her elbow and has had to have wires put in it. She got the purple cast on yesterday after they checked that the wires were still in position. She's doing really well considering too. Such a little trouper!)

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!