Kinfe the Fairy Bear

This is Kinfe - my little 9" Fairy Bear. He's made from the rest of the rainbow dyed piece of mohair I used for Esmeralda. His paypal listing his HERE.

A new pet for our house...

I woke up this morning and decided I was going to buy a fighter fish. So I did! But first I had to salvage this old vase from the backyard (where I had been using it upside down to take photos of bears on). Clean it, fill it with water, check and adjust the pH level, put the chlorine remover in, set up the heater (as its the middle of winter here)...


...buy some rocks and plants, buy the fish and some food...


...set up the tank, float the fish, release him and watch him swim laps!


I've never had one like him before (and I've had a few over the years!). He's a really odd mix of pink, blue and red. Depending on how the light hits him, he will appear predominantly a vibrant blue, or sometimes more of a mottled pink.

Simply the MOST amazing bear I've ever seen!

I don't know about you... but I am in LOVE! This is the most incredible piece of artistry and engineering I have ever seen! Meet Tiffany by eTeddys. She is MASSIVE too - coming in at 33" tall. You can see in the last photo that her head is actually bigger than the real Tiffany's!


Alison has made Tiffany to help raise $2500 towards a lung transplant for a young woman named Tiffany Tate. Tickets are $10 each, and she will only be selling 250 of them (so get in quick if you'd like some!). Click HERE to be taken to all of Alison's photos and information on purchasing tickets. I have my 5 tickets, and I must say I'm tempted to get more!

New Bear - Roxanna

Roxanna is the fattest, greenest, sweetest little chunk of bear that i've made in a long time! She's the result of the piece of mohair that I dyed here. I painstakingly went through ALL of my patterns in my very un-organised pattern folder (I really need a better system!) to find the one that would fit the odd shape of fur I had at my disposal. It was just under a fat 1/8th as I'd used the other part to make my custom bear Edwin - who was also hand dyed (a rich, dark purple that time).

I ended up deciding to go with short and fat for Roxanna rather than long and lean. I also tried my new Inktense foot shading technique again. This time I was a little heavier handed with the colouring before the wetting process to give me more colour to work with. It was actually quite fun. I just roughly scribbled the pencil of the corresponding fur colour out about 1cm along the edge of the paw pad until all colours were present on the pad. Then I dipped my finger tip into a cup of water and blended the colour from the edge of the foot towards the middle of the pad - starting with the lightest first, working around to the darkest. The trickiest bit is blending the colours together in the middle. If you keep the ink quite light towards the middle you don't get any 'muddying'.


I am definitely happy with the look, and will keep testing out as I can - bear permitting!

Cutest little giveaway

Check out this little sweet heart - Blue Moon by A Stuffed Life. The giveaway is drawn on July 18th (which just so happens to be my birthday. So I automatically believe I'm going to win! :P).

My Monkey Arrived!!!

I was trawling through ebay and the orphans on bearpile a few weeks back, and stumbled across this little sweetheart. And HAD to have her! She is the MOST expensive adoption I've ever made, and is my very first reborn doll adoption. But she is a true work of art! Look at that sweet little face. (and we'll just call her an early birthday present... ;))

Chelsea loved her too. She squealed with delight when I lifted her out of the box, and just about jumped on me to get to her. I let her have a little cuddle - but after the money I out-laid to get her sent all the way from the UK to Australia, I'm a little reluctant to let Chelsea too close. (During the cuddle session she decided Monkey needed to be pushed into the garden - cementing my resolve to keep Monkey safe on a very high shelf!).

Missing someone special...

I've been having a bit of trouble getting to sleep lately, and last night got thinking about the pet parrot we had before Chelsea was born.

His name was Kojo and he was a beautiful Sun Conure. We purchased him in an irresponsible 'spare of the moment' decision one Sunday afternoon when visiting a pet shop. We had planned on buying a Cockatiel, but fell in love with Kojo's playful nature. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), he didn't make any noises in the pet shop. And being totally clueless about Sun Conure's, we didn't know what we were in for!



As a heads-up for anyone considering adopting a Sun Conure - they are LOUD!!!! And I don't just mean a little bit noisy, but easy to block out as background noise loud; I mean obtrusive, unavoidable, able-to-hear-from-the-road-when-the-bird-is-in-the-back-room-of-the-house kind of loud!



Kojo let off his first screeches once we got him safely into the house. Mark and I looked at each other and both said 'what have we done!?'.

I would say that it probably took a good 6 months for him to be comfortable with us, and for us to be comfortable with him. We got him to the stage where he was quiet as a mouse when just hanging with us. And if he was naughty he would get a time-out in his cage - in his own room! We let his wings grow back and he would fly from my shoulder to Mark's as he pleased. He was always so happy to see us when we got home from work. He would do his little happy dance and make soft grunty noises. When he was feeling really affectionate, he would nestle himself in the warm spot between my ear and my shoulder, pulling my hair around him like a blanket. I loved him so much! So much that even now, almost 2 years since we had to find him a new home, my heart hurts to think about him.



When we found out we were pregnant with Chelsea, we made the hard decision to find him a new home, sooner rather than later. I knew it would be hard, but I don't think I realised just how hard! I tried a million different scenarios in my head to see if there was some way we could keep him. But it just wasn't practical. Kojo was terribly bonded to me, and had gotten to the stage where he would attack Mark if Mark tried to give me a hug while Kojo was sitting on my shoulder. He would attack any of our guests as well, and actually drew blood on everyone who came to look at him to give him a new home! We knew that this behaviour, along with his volume level, would not work very well with a newborn in the house.



Watching Kojo get bundled into his new owner's car... his little claws clinging onto the bars of his cage, trying to get as close to where I was standing as possible, staring at me through the window as the guy drove away... It just about broke my heart. There was no way I could explain to him that I still loved him, but his new family would look after him now. I don't know how much intelligence to credit him with, but I couldn't help feeling like I'd betrayed him. I'd taken him home, gotten him attached to me, then tossed him out at the first chance.



I cried for the rest of that day. I sobbed all through dinner. Cried myself to sleep. Cried at work the next day. And the day after that. (It probably didn't help that I was about 14 weeks pregnant either! :P). That sweet, annoying little bird had stolen his way into my heart, and going from the reaction I still have now when I think about him, he'll be there for a little longer yet...