GIANT bear!

We've had a few requests over the years to release bigger ePatterns for our bears. But I honestly didn't have many over the 20" mark because there's not a lot of demand for bigger artist bears (cost/shipping/materials etc).

But this week I decided to give it a go. After all I have a whole supply stores worth of fabric at my disposal (thanks Fur Addiction! lol), so had a bit of flexibility to play around a bit.

I pulled out some of my older big bear patterns from about a decade ago, but the biggest one was only 27". So we drew up a new one. The photo above shows the cut pieces laid in position. It looked like the bear might come to about 35" tall. It took just under a full 1m piece to make (approx a yard of fabric). We used 'Aurora Borealis' for this bear.

I then managed to use ALL of my stuffing just on the head. So this was as far as I got on the first day of work. Poor teddy had to spend the night crammed into a tub while she waited for me to source some more stuffing!

Then the next day we had an unexpected urgent custom request (which is a little bit secret right now - but I have taken lots of photos and hope to be able to show you all sometime in the near future. Think iconic aussie animal and TV!), so poor teddy got neglected again. But today I was able to finish stuffing her, then closed her seams, pulled and shaded her toes and finished off her detailing.

And this was the beauty we were rewarded with!

I've called her 'Kittie'. Mostly because she's wearing a STUNNING moveable faux diamond gold-tone kitty pendant I've just been dying to use on a bear. And also because I love how it conjures up images of tiny little fluffy creatures, yet here we have this incredible monstrosity of a bear!

It really can be hard to tell proportions on the bears sometimes, so for this big girl I decided to take a 'selfie' with her to help show her true size better. I am not a small person by any stretch of the imagination either (at nearly 6 foot tall) so even I dwarf her a bit! But as you can see - she is big!

She has already been adopted, but we will be trialing this pattern again with some different fabrics to make sure it is versatile and the proportions don't look weird in say mohair, or a short-pile faux fur before we release it. So keep checking back at the blog (or head on over to our facebook page) to keep up with the next lot of work-in-progess updates!

Custom rainbow Dragon - Parisa

While we were making the dragon duo from our last post, we were also finishing up this stunning custom rainbow dragon for a special collector. She is made in the last piece of our very vibrant hand-dyed rainbow sparkle mohair, a pair of our HUGE handpainted glass eyes in rainbow effect (I tried SO hard to get an accurate detail shot of these eyes, but my camera was just not up to the task!), and some pretty scalloped print cotton for her belly and paws (that was too perfect as dragon scales not to use!).

I was careful to lay her pattern pieces so that hald of her was purple/pink/orange...

... and the other half was more blue/green/purple. I think the effect is actually really cool - and almost leaves you with two different dragons depending on how you display her.

We called her 'Parisa', which means 'like a fairy' - seemed appropriate with her gorgeous shimmery wings and her floral head detailing. And those eyes!

Parisa is adopted, as is the little mini dragon Eleri - but Torvald (the electric blue dragon below) is currently available in our etsy store.

Dragons Dragons everywhere!!!

It has been a dragony week this week! We decided to try a mini-dragon too (our Dragon pattern reduced by 50%).

These are some of our work-in-progess photos.

This is little 'Eleri'. She's a petite 6" tall and 7" long. I LOVE her colour combo - the blue mohair and the purple contrast... this little lady appeals to me a lot! She is available for adoption right now if you like her too, but I can't say how long she'll be available for!

And this is 'Torvald'. We made him using our electric blue sparkle faux fur. (This is actually our first time using our dragon pattern in a faux fur, and a long-pile one at that. He kind of reminds me of the Luck Dragon from the Neverending Story movie!).

Torvald is also currently available for adoption in our etsy store. Both Torvald and Eleri are one of a kind creations so once sold, they're sold! If you like these guys but would really like a specific colour, send us a message (eleb2000@hotmail.com) and we can nut out a custom order.

Missy Mischief

This was a little project I was working on at the start of the week. This is another of my older designs - I think I used to call it 'Big Foot', for obvious reasons! 

I decided that the funky design needed some funky fabric - and found this piece of the crazy orange/electric blue tipped mohair that was all the rage about 10yrs ago, in my personal stash. 

And so 'Missy Mischief' was born! I love her little innie belly button and bright blue nose. I love how fun she is, and how I smile whenever I walk past her on my display shelf!

Time out for a bit of painting.

Mark recently suggested that I should take up painting again, as it was something I used to enjoy in my teens, but hadn't had a chance to do in a long time. So I pondered on the idea for a while. I would need to buy EVERYTHING again - paints, brushes, canvas, sketch book, pencils, mixing pads... I had nothing left from my early days of painting. But I the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I just did it.

I bought a few small stretched canvases, a small packet of brushes and a sample set of acrylic colours. And a sketch book. And spent many hours brainstorming ideas and just drawing. It was actually really nice to be drawing for a different purpose. Not because I needed to make a new bear pattern - but 'just because'.

These are the resulting ooak original paintings.

My kids have been really excited about the paintings too. My 5yr old came home from preschool and just stood in front of the counter where I had this owl painting drying, staring at it for a few minutes.

She then asked, 'mum, why is there a teddy in the tree?'

'Um... I'm not actually sure Chels. Maybe someone left him there after they had a picnic, and forgot about him? The owl looks like he's saying 'who is this in my tree!?' doesn't he?'

She had a little giggle then got on with her afternoon (demanding snacks while I cook dinner - that kind of fun parenting stuff).

I just about used my whole tube of yellow for this one! I do love the texture in it though - I managed to track down some impasto which has let me achieve the texture on the centre of the sunflowers here, and the texture in the bark and the owl's belly on the painting above.

And this one is my all time favourite so far! I only dreamed of being able to paint like this in art class. I honestly don't know how/why I suddenly can, but I am quite chuffed with it.

Many hours went into the detail on this one. And it actually looks just as good from a distance as it does up close. You're eyes are drawn more to the shape of the nude lady from a distance, and up close you see more of the surreal landscape detailing.

I've set up a special section for these paintings on our website as well if you're interested in a piece of 'Emma's Bears' canvas art!? lol
All one of a kind, hand painted on quality gallery-style stretched canvases.
Something a little different :)

Lulu bunny (and her gorgeous fur)

This is Lulu, named by her new mummy (sorry, she is adopted)...

She was made in a piece of one of our latest Limited Edition new faux fur fabrics. We have a little bit of this still remaining in our store if you'd like to make your own critters :)