Ringo & Timothy

 I still can't show you Wednesday's bear unfortunately - although I can tell you that her name is Daisy.  She is still having her new jacket fitted.  Hopefully, she will be ready before Monday.

In the meantime, I can show you what I was making on Thursday and Friday - two lovely, string-jointed rabbits, in dark red cashmere.  Their ears are jointed too, so they rotate!  I have named these ones Ringo and Timothy.

This is my next design - so I will be making 10 of these.

Next week is going to be rather disrupted unfortunately.  I will hopefully be able to complete another rabbit tomorrow, but I will be working elsewhere on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (and then Saturday, as usual), so it's not going to be the most productive of weeks. :-(

Drumroll please...

My latest completed project... teddy bear bouquets!

Please excuse the multiple photographs - they took so long to make, I wanted to make sure I photographed them from every angle. 

This is my second Valentine's idea, although I'm hoping people will appreciate them as gifts even though Valentine's Day is long gone.  They are little bears (approximately 3.5 inches) attached to willow twigs (approx 27 inches), and I have included a piece of red twisted willow too.  I have packaged them up to look like bouquets - each bouquet has two bears to it.  They have 'Hand-made by BigFeetBears' labels, printed on clear plastic and attached with a piece of red satin ribbon.

Naturally, after all that work, it turns out that they don't photograph well(!) - the plastic wrapping picks up dust incredibly easily.

This will be the first time I've made something for BigFeetBears which is so fragile.  I am slightly worried that they might get broken or damaged at the Centre, but we'll see how it goes

Anyway, next step is to get the dungarees made for the four little bears.  I'm hoping to take all the would-be Valentine's items in this Saturday.  I also need to start making some rabbits for the Thirteen Brushes Gallery - if they'll still have me, after being out of touch for so long.

New from Snailspace Bears Inc.

I have made so few bears so far this year!  At the moment, all the things I'm working on seem to take an age to prepare.  I have made four little red bears (ahem, for Valentine's Day) - all with a lovely, chubby, rounded shape.  They are currently waiting for their dungarees to be finished though.  I was thinking of making little drawstring bags for them too, but they've been so long in the making, I think I need to get them on the shelf as soon as possible now.

I have also been working on another Valentine's idea (I am determined to get all my 'seasonal' ideas out this year, even if not in the correct season), which involves lots of the tiny little bears with simple felt limbs.  I'm off to work in a minute, with thirteen tiny heads and bodies to sew together.  Hopefully, I will be back to show the results of that in a day or two.

Anyway, below are pictures of one of the four, currently naked, Valentine's bears.

Teddy Bear Hearts

Pffff! It has been a stressful couple of days - not least because I had to keep nagging myself to finish these things...

As usual, my photographs are rubbish - apologies. They are little red hearts, hanging from a ribbon, with a teddy bear clinging to the lower edge. Easy to make - but boring! The first one was a revelation; the rest were a real chore.

With the first three, I sewed the teddy bear diagonally opposite the ribbon - thinking, for some reason, that this was the best way to do it. By the last one, the little white bear, my concentration was clearly failing, and I sewed the bear to the other edge of the heart. It actually looks much better that way. If I ever make another one (very dubious), I shall know.

Valentine's display

Well, I had more or less given up on the idea of a heart-shaped wreath for Valentine's Day. It seems that just about the only place you can get them is funeral parlours. I was making new (and slightly desperate) plans for a heart-shaped chair. However, I came down one morning (late again - although I was working hard the night before) and found that my mother had made the wreath!

It is made (I think) out of vines, with raffea strung in a sort of lattice-pattern across the inside, so the bears can be propped between the strings.

This is Byron, with his new jacket...

Shelley, sadly still stark naked...

Casanova and Valentino...

I linked up on Facebook with another lady who has a unit at the Art & Craft Centre. She sells jewellery - including gorgeous turquoise and silver jewellery from Israel, and some beautiful, colourful beaded pieces which she makes herself. Have a look at her website, here.

She is always fantastic with the marketing ideas, and she suggested that I make some labels with different Valentine's messages that people could choose to go with the bear they buy.

After scouring the Internet for Valentine's messages, I confess I'm feeling slightly sick, so I decided to go with the very simple ones (or perhaps just the uninspired ones).

They're actually a little more involved than they look there - the writing is printed onto a piece of transparent acetate, and then backed by a piece of thick, watercolour paper. It's the red satin ribbon which really makes them though.

And the final display...

With tags in a sweet little gingham basket...

It's a little rough round the edges, but I'm actually really pleased with this display. I have always been put off doing things like this - thinking, if the bears don't sell, I'm going to have to remove all the valentine's trappings. It's not a disaster if they sell after Valentine's Day though - bears and hearts go together quite well at any time of year.

And it's a good thing too, because I am actually getting into the spirit of it a bit now, and I'm working on another heart-themed item. For once, I am actually ahead of myself!

Valentine's Update

Woefully behind the times as I am, this Valentine's thing is slowly happening. First of all, my mother made a little pair of baggy dungarees for Casanova...

And the view from the back...

Apologies for the screaming red photographs - I just keep pressing buttons on my hi-tech camera until I get something which looks right. I think I miscalculated slightly with these.

Anyway! I have also made another little bear - similar pattern, different proportions. He's name is Valentino, and he looks quite sweet in dungarees too.

Here he is by himself... His dungarees somehow turned out larger - more like knickerbockers really, or bloomers held up with braces.

I was on a roll then, and made two more - Byron and Shelley (alright, I admit, I'm making the names up as I go along). Sadly, my mother was no longer on a roll, so no dungarees! I'm hoping to persuade her to make jackets for these two.

Group photo...

I would like to try making a few teeny-tiny bears with very basic felt bodies and just a joint at the neck (I'm still thinking of decorating a wreath, although I haven't been able to find one so far). Also a few cashmere hearts and, if I have time, a bigger red bear.

So, what do you think of the Valentine's display so far?

Oh, alright, forget it!

Casanova

A Valentine's Day bear!

I was wondering whether I would be able to make enough of these in the time I have left, to form a little Valentine's Display. I'll probably end up just sitting them all together on the shelf, but I do have some ideas - even if they don't often pan out!

With these bears, I was thinking perhaps I could use them to decorated a wreath. At garden centres, you can get the wooden frames that you decorate to make Christmas wreaths. Occasionally, you see different shaped frames. If I can find a heart-shaped frame (a largish one - sort of small-shop display size), then perhaps I could decorate it with leaves and roses (plastic roses?) and then attach the bears somehow. I'm not quite certain how they would be attached - maybe a short length of florist's wire wrapped around the stomach, although it could be quite tricky to detach them that way.

I'd need to figure out a way of making some really small bears (perhaps along the same lines as the teddy bear gift tags I made a while ago) to fill in the space, and I could make some little felt hearts as well.

Oh well, let's see if I can make this one work - off to search the web for heart-shaped wreath frames...

Patch

My little, originally-named, patchwork bear (see this post) has been saved with some decorative embroidery over the exposed seams (my mother's work). I think you can see it in this photo (click on the pic for a closer look).

I have put him on Etsy - see link here.

In the meantime, I am struggling with elephant patterns. I have made them before (and posted them here, but it was ages ago), but the design is rather inconvenient, so I'm trying to stream-line it slightly. The Valentines' stuff will just have to wait!

Bleh!

I've just had a horrible couple of days - working on an idea that came to nothing (and suddenly for some weird reason my comma key doesn't work).

I was thinking about what to do for Valentine's Day and I had this ambitious plan to make a series of bears [comma] corresponding to the words of a particular song. The first one was supposed to be a very stately looking bear decorated with a Union Jack. I have tried decorating bears with a particular pattern before. Cutting out each individual piece of the pattern in different colours and sewing them together doesn't usually work - all you can see are the seams. This time I thought I'd try painting the pattern directly onto the bear.

I have an airbrush which I've never learnt to use [comma] and it comes with a set of inks so I thought I'd give those a try. Unfortunately the ink came off all over my hands (I now have navy blue nails). I was resolved to finish it anyway - knowing that it's usually a mistake to give up on a project half-way - but I put the head on and for no reason that I could work out the neck was wonky.

So I gave up - he/she obviously wasn't meant to be. And now I'm half-way through week 2 and I haven't even made even one bear yet. I hope this isn't a premonition of things to come.

Anyway! The next questions are [COMMA!] what am I going to do for the shop for Valentine's Day and can I get two bears made in what's left of this week? And what is wrong with the blasted comma key!