Baby Madeline Mae

I am totally chuffed to be able to introduce you all to 'Baby Madeline Mae' - our very latest, just born 'Baby Bear'. 

These were some of the progree photos I had posted to our facebook page yesterday afternoon as her face slowly came to life. Above is her 'raw' head - all that we've done here is stuffed it, closed the neck joint, trimmed her face roughly and pulled in the eye-sockets.

The photo above shows the first layer of nose embroidery stitches. I don't use templates or draw on nose shapes simply because I'm lazy, and I just never have. This can backfire some times and I'll end up with really crappy, uneven noses. But if I'm in a good frame of mind (and have good light to work in) I'll generally end up with a nose I'm proud of.

My way of working is just to start with a very firm/tightly pulled layer of stitches that kind of mark out the rough shape/size I think will suit the bear's face. I then work over this foundation layer with multiple layers pulling tightly and evenly as I go with each stitch. Eventually I find that I have a bear looking back at me with a cute little 3-dimensional embroidered nose.

And this is the finished bear in all of her entirety...

Name: Madeline Mae 
Born: 23/4/14
Time: 10:29am 
Weight: 5 lb 10oz
Length: 45cm

Madeline is currently available for adoption. She has been made in one of the last pieces of our 'Milk Chocolate' imported German kid-mohair that I squirreled away for myself before it sold out on our supplies website. I'm so glad I did too as the combo between the chocolatey curls and the soft lilac of her pinafore is just divine!

Hugo

We're officially back making bears again now, and it feels good! 

It has been about 3.5wks since Zander's birth and my energy is improving every day. I even managed to take the dogs for a walk yesterday (granted it was only 2.5km around the block and took me nearly half and hour!). 

This is our newest bear. I wanted to try and showcase his amazing mohair by trimming back his face to reveal the backing colour and the lighter pile under the chocolate tips. The mohair is actually a small piece we ordered in as part of our last German imported shipment. We held it back, saving it for a special project - and Hugo was the result! 

I've cut the remaining mohair into useable fat 1/4m pieces (approx 50cm x 70cm) for sale on our furaddiction.com website. We used our 'Lyric' pattern for this bear as well if you wanted to try making your own version of Hugo (a 1/4m piece is perfect for making that pattern). 

Hugo is 16" tall, fully jointed and stuffed with polyfill and steel shot. 

He looks out through a pair of our handpainted glass eyes that we also sculpted some polymer clay eyelids onto. I chose a light coloured faux suede for his paw pads to bright out the lighter coloured mohair pile a bit more, and it has served to help highlight his fluffy cheeks too which is a bonus!

We kept the shading to a minimum and embroidered some good old fashioned classic 'claws'. And finished him off with a simple blue satin bow. 

Hugo is currently available for adoption as well, and would make a lovely addition to a traditional teddy collection, or even as a room decoration for a lucky little boy.

Esther Bunny

Did you know it's nearly Easter!?!? How on earth did that happen. It honestly feels like just the other day that it was Christmas. 

I remembered over the weekend that I'd started work on a duo of bunnies in our very last piece of imported pink kid mohair before my surrogate bub was born. Then promptly forgotten about them! 

But I found them again, added those last finishing touches, and have listed them for adoption in our etsy store. 

They are a limited edition of 2 worldwide and I've called them 'Esther Bunny'!

What's next for Emma's Bears?

After all of the excitement of the last few months as surro-bub's due date got closer and closer, I knew I'd need something to direct my attention onto once the surrogacy process was finished. But I wasn't sure what that would be. Friends suggested I book a family holiday, or organise a big birthday party this year... but I knew I'd need something to keep my mind focused on each day for a few months at least, not just for a little while. Then - I got the email calling on artists for the next Teddies Worldwide Online Bear show... and I decided it might be just the thing!

We're very excited to announce that we have been accepted and will be part of the next Teddies Worldwide Online show in June! Now the fun part begins... imagining-into-being all the exclusive new bears and critters who will feature on our show page!

Do you guys have anything in particular that you'd love to see us whip up? Or any brilliant ideas for the 'vacation' theme! lol

Meet Zander Michael

For the last 9 months I have been 'cooking' a special little bub for another family. On Wednesday he was born, and he's just perfect. I've written a more detailed birth story over at the surrogacy blog if you're interested too. But the main stats are that he was born at 2:40pm on Wednesday the 26th March 2014, weighing 9lb, 9oz and 57cm long! His parents have named him Zander Michael.

There were some complications following his arrival, and his placenta would not detatch so I ended up being rushed to theatre (which is why I look like this in the above photo! I had just been wheeled back to the ward here!). But I'm home and back with my kids, and Zander is home with his family.

 I will be taking a few weeks out to recover, but Mark is still working on the mail orders from www.furaddiction.com and there are still a number of ready-made bears available for adoption over at our Emma's Bears etsy store. We won't be taking custom orders for a bit longer yet though.

We wanted to thank everyone who's contacted us with words of support too, it means so much.

Bear Collectors SUPER SALE event starting TODAY!

This is a little teaser/preview of our upcoming bear-collectors SUPER SALE event over at our Emma's Bears Facebook page! 

We have selected 21 of our Emma's Bears handmade, OOAK and limited Edition bears, bunnies and elephants, and will be listing ONE per day at HALF PRICE! 

The discounted price will only be available for 24hrs per bear, and it will be purely on a first-in, first choice basis (no laybys/lay-aways sorry). 

The first bear will be listed on our FB page later today - a gorgeous large (19") mohair panda bear! 

The sale will run from the 15th March until the 6th April 2014 with a different critter listed each day! 

New Release Rabbit Pattern

We are so excited to announce that we have a brand new Emma's Bears pattern to release! This cutie is our 'Real Rabbit' pattern, designed to be the approximate size of a pet bunny sitting on all fours. The pattern was designed for use with quality faux fur fabrics, but we have made it up in mohair and it works just as well.

You can instantly download the Rabbit pattern from our etsy store. This particular bunny 'Walter' was made using our 'Aurora Borealis' luxury faux fur with a very pretty cornflower blue base colour and a tipped effect in all shades of the rainbow! (Walter has been adopted)

This little lady is 'Lilah' - she is also made using our 'Real Rabbit' pattern, but this time using our 'Fluffy Cloud' white faux fur for the inner ears and our 'Husky Pup' luxury faux fur. I really loved the more natural/realistic look of these fabrics too.