Walnut Tree Corner Bears

Teeny Weeny Little Bears

2009-08-27T09:47:00.013+01:00

Recently I seem to have been in the mood to create some of the teeniest bears that I make. They are about an inch tall and have wobble jointed heads and thread jointed limbs.You can see just how small they are from the photo above.

A lovely collector of mine, who already owned a couple of my teenies, recently contacted me about making another for her. She knows that I don't make too many of them as I have to be in exactly the right frame of mind to cope with all the teeny weeny pieces and the sometimes frustrating task of turning such tiny body parts, especially the ears!

I like to make individual special boxes for these tiniest of bears. Each has the name of the bear on it and it acts as their safe little home whilst traveling to their new Hug, I don't want them to get lost in amongst the packaging!

Well it seems my collector has caught me in just the right mood as I have made several of these teeny weenys on the trot! I have to grasp the opportunity when it arises , as who knows when I will suddenly go off making such little ones for a while. I expect when I go back to making my "normal" sized 3 inch bears they will seem huge to me but much less complicated. I think a change of scale every so often can really give one a boost :O)

Oh, and for those who might be wondering, I did get an interview for the job in the records office but I did not get the job, as although my customer service skills were judged as excellent, I did not know enough about the actual duties of the job entailed ( not really surprising as I had not done it before!) It's the same old chicken and egg thing, you need experience to do the job, but you can't get experience unless somebody gives you the job in the first place. Never mind, as a friend told me , "when one door closes, another opens" I shall just put it all down to experience.

A reminder that I am not as fit as I thought I was!

2009-07-25T12:56:00.005+01:00

Yesterday was moving day for my eldest daughter.I had said to her that I would be on hand during the day for whenever they needed some help.At a little before eight in the morning I was sitting in my PJ's having just finished my breakfast and drinking my cup of tea, when the phone rang," Hi ,it's me I'll be there to pick you up in two minutes" as I was half asleep I replied "OK".As soon as I had put the phone down, the very short conversation sunk in!!! I dashed upstairs and got washed and dressed at breakneck speed to see Rebecca's car arrive in front of the house just as I got back downstairs. Well that was ok but I was a little breathless as I got into her car and obviously still partially asleep as I had to go back indoors for my glasses(which I wear all day !)and to turn off the TV which was still showing the breakfast news.

I spent most of the day at either the old rented house dismantling beds, carrying drawers and boxes from upstairs to downstairs via the very steep and winding staircase or at the new house feeling a bit useless as I did not really know where she wanted things put, but she was too busy herself to tell me and her boyfriend was making the trips between the two houses, only about 5 miles apart, with van loads of furniture and boxes. Most of the work involved was at the old house and by six in the evening I was worn out and Rebecca said that they would be fine with possibly one more van load to go.I walked home, as it is only five minutes, but by the time I got in I felt thoroughly shattered.

Ha ! I thought I felt tired yesterday, I got up this morning and nearly everything ached! My calf muscles are the worst, I think its all the going up and down stairs. I have to keep moving about or I think I might seize up completely.

But there are several bright sides to this story,

1) My daughter and her boyfriend have their very own home,

2)The exercise must have done me some good, and lost me a few of the extra pounds in weight I seem to have started carrying around and

3)I had a message on my answer-phone when I got back to say that I had been shortlisted for the job I had applied for and could I attend an interview!

so on balance a good day was had by all( and I have the weekend to recover).

What I did on my holiday

2009-07-05T16:56:00.008+01:00

Did you ever have to write a essay with that title when you were at school?. Well here is what I did on mine

I am just about at the end of my two-week summer break from work. However I don’t seem to have done very much with the time. We didn’t go away on holiday (too expensive) and we didn’t go for the odd day out (still costs money, and there is hardly any spare at the moment!), so I spent the time at home “pottering”. Most afternoons I was able to watch the tennis at Wimbledon on the TV, something I have not been able to do since my daughters were very young (I seem to have always been at work, but then I am a Saturday’s Child). I did do a little bit of sewing in the first week and some designing of new patterns, a small bear with a rounder shaped head, which I am pleased with and a dragon, which needs some adjustments and is not to be revealed at the moment.

I also spent a bit more time researching my family history, something I have done on and off for a number of years now. I have only ever used the internet to do this, there is such a lot of information available to look at, that I have ,as yet, had no need to go and visit various records offices around the country to check documents. I have always thought what an interesting thing it would be to do though.

Imagine my delight when I found a job advertised at the local records office for an assistant to help people do their own family research, how brilliant would that be? It is part time and fits in with the part time hours I currently work, and the extra money would certainly also be a help. Well I have sent in my application (I have not written a CV for 13 years, so that was interesting trying to remember all the details of my work history ), I just have to wait and see now if I am on the short list (all fingers crossed), the closing date is not for a while yet so I won’t hear for a little while, however they did say that they let people know one way or the other, which is more than some employers do nowadays.

I will have to get myself in gear tomorrow morning, no more getting up at whatever time I fancy, I will have to be up and ready to go bright and early!

Sneaky Peek!

2009-01-31T16:21:00.010Z

Here is a sneaky peek at my bears taking part in the Be My Valentine on line show on 14th february. This takes place at the Teddy Bears and Critters Australia website here

check the website for times in your area. It is a 24 hour online show with lots of bears available from an array of international artists. As well as a virtual booth for each artist, there is also a booth where all the bears have been donated by the artists to raise money to help the Cambodian Sun bears. You can read more about them on the TBACA website. The artists are only allowed to give sneaky peeks before the show opens its doors ...... it keeps it interesting!

Time for a revamp!

2009-01-30T10:26:00.004Z

One of my new years resolutions was to post more frequently to my blog, at least once and maybe twice a month at least. Well I had better hurry up then as there are only two days left in January!!!!

I decided that my blog was looking somewhat boring compared to most others I had seen. My sister, another blogger, suggested I visit www.thecutestblogontheblock.com. There are all sorts of backgrounds and page layouts to play about with and I think the background I picked goes well with the Walnut Tree Corner name. If I get bored of it after a while I can change it again :O).

Thats it for now, but I may even squeeze in another post in January as I have news of some projects I am taking part in this year.

Autumn Trends

2008-10-17T11:23:00.011+01:00

This week I have had some time off work, so as well as fitting in all the hairdresser, dentist, doctor and opticians appointments, that I don't normally have time to fit in, I have also had some time to make bears! I have managed to make three from start to finish and also finished off two more.

The season has now definitely changed to Autumn and this has influenced me in my bear making. I have chosen gold, copper and various shades of browns to make my latest bears. There are so many lovely shades of fabric, that one can never have enough to choose from.

Just some of the fabric from my stash in autumn shades

I noticed on the news this morning that they were talking about the lack of conkers this year due to the Horse Chestnut trees being attacked by the leaf miner moth. When I was much younger we lived in a house that had a Horse Chestnut tree in the front garden. I can remember naughty little boys sneaking through the hedge to pick up particularly promising looking conkers that had fallen on the lawn ,and worse still trying to knock them off the tree by throwing stuff up into the branches to dislodge them! On the other side of the drive we had apple trees, so we also had problems with scrumpying too!

As I have made all these new bears, I have also Autumnised (if there is such a word!)my website so that the page themes are more in keeping with the season and the new bears I have to offer.

Here are some of my Autumnal bears available on my website:-

If you would like more information about the Autumn bears click on the link to my website at the top right of the page.

Website Update and the importance of doing back-ups

2008-09-11T16:34:00.005+01:00

Just to let everybody know that my website, www.bearsbygail.co.uk has recently been updated. I have added a few new bears and changed the theme of some of the pages. I had worked really hard on updating the pages and just after I had finished tweaking everything, my poor iMac decided it had just had enough and refused to play anymore! How glad I was that I had carried out a back up only a few days before, so most of the work was definitely retrievable. I thought I may lose the last bit I had done but my clever, very computer savvy husband managed to get the old computer to cough up, so in the end I lost nothing, just the hardware. I am now working on the "spare" computer which is actually the screen from one ,the keyboard from another and the bit that does all the work(don't know the name of it....you can see how clever I am at computers....not) from yet another one!

so in summary two things,

a) if you would like to visit my updated website, please click the banner at the top right of the page and

b)Please all you computer users remember to make regular back ups.

New Leaf

2008-09-01T19:58:00.002+01:00

Right, that's it. I am turning over a new leaf and trying to get organised. I know that I have an online show coming up in February, and that all the details of the bears have to be sent in, in January. I have set myself a target of how many bears I am going to complete and broken that down into the amount of time I have left between now and then, so that I will know if I am on target to be ready. No last minute sewing on of ears for me!(incidentally, I have diarised my tasks at work so I can spread them out over the month too). I am determined not to let things creep up on me any more!(except maybe the housework, I hate, hate, hate it. Although it is necessary, it's not very creative I find)

Why do I always leave things to the last minute?

2008-08-31T11:55:00.007+01:00

I really don't know the answer to this. It seems to happen in all strands of my life. At work there are certain things that have to be done each month, and nearly all the time I am scrabbling about trying to get them all done in the last few days. As my manager answered ,when I said I had just been too busy, "If you can find the time to do it now because it has to be done by tomorrow, why couldn't you find the time to do it two weeks ago?"

I think that we all think (or do we?)that if there are, say, two weeks to do something, we are bound to get a bit of spare time between now and then to complete the task in hand.

I decided that this year I would place an advert in the Hugglets guide for 2009. The dead line for adverts is the 4th September. Now I have known that I wanted to do this for some time, but I realised on Friday (with a week to go)that I had done nothing towards it!!!!! Well I managed to take some decent photos and play about with some photo editing software to create an advert with appropriate text and send it through by e-mail within a day. Now all I have to do is send in the paperwork to go with it. Easy you say......No, because I have to write a small paragraph for my main listing in 20 words or less . I always hated competitions where you had to write a slogan, and this is what this feels like to me.I need to summerise what my bears are about in these few words. Most of the things I have come up with so far, are a few words too long. I expect I will be able to do it with some fine tuning....but why did I leave it so long? I could have had this sorted out ages ago, I knew I would have to do it, so why didn't I???

Note to self ...try to be a bit more organised then maybe I will have more time to do other things!

Different inspirations

2008-08-30T09:09:00.000+01:00

It is strange the things that inspire the making of different bears.This little panda (well actually quite large in my bear making terms, she is just over 4" tall) began as a spark of inspiration, when I was sorting out my ever growing stash of fabrics.

A bear maker can never have enough fabric! You must always be on the look out for interesting material and trimmings and little twiddly bits, that might one day come in handy.I think that I have magpie tendencies as I see some little sparkley thing or pretty ribbon or really soft fabric, and I think "oooh thats really nice, I am not sure what I will use it for but I am sure it will come in handy for something soon!"

Anyway, back to my panda. Her name is Plumpanda, because she is a panda in a plum colour, but also as she is on the cuddly side of slim! so may be her name should really be Plumpandapanda! I have a box which contains my vintage long pile fabric collection and I was looking through it when I came across a fairly small piece of a gorgeous buttery cream fabric. This was on top of a deep rich plumy purple colour which I have had for so long that I cannot remember where it came from.Well it shouted "make a panda" to me. I belong to a number of teddy related internet groups and a Panda Challenge had been set on one and I think this is why my brain was in panda mode.

I am very pleased with Plumpandapanda, as I think she will now be called, she even has a matching purple nose!

I am an affiliate member of Teddy Bears And Critters Australasia!

2008-08-25T16:17:00.000+01:00

Exciting News! I have recently become an affiliate member of TBACA (see banner on the right for a link to their website). Their first 24 hour online show is to be held on 27th September 2008, and I for one will be dropping in to see all the fabulous bears on offer from all the members of this group Down-under.I have also signed up for their first international show which is to be held on 14th February 2009 and is titled " Be My Valentine", so hearts and flowers will no doubt be prominent as a theme in the bears on offer.

Adventures into open mouths!

2008-08-10T08:03:00.000+01:00

I have been reading up on all the different methods of creating open-mouthed bears. Since I mostly make bears of less than 4" in height, I had not really considered going down this route before, thinking that they were far too small to try this with. However, I do like a challenge, so I decided to try it and see what happened. After reading lots of information, I decided to try the insert method, whereby a section is cut from the side head pattern and a small gusset is inserted creating the top and bottom of the inside of the mouth. I was quite pleased with my first attempt but felt I could improve it with maybe a little adjustment to the pattern for the inserted mouth piece. This resulted in attempt number two, which is again OK but I felt it needed more needle sculpting to get the shape even better. I have also been reluctant to try this technique as I really dislike the look of some open-mouthed bears which look a bit mean and scary, I want my open mouthed bears to look happy and smiley.

I think my third attempt is quite smiley but I think I will have to make a few more to see if I can duplicate the effect. I think that different fabrics and different amounts of stuffing will also change the effect I can achieve. You can therefore expect to see a few more open-mouthed bears soon, so watch this space!

My Very First Post!

2008-05-18T18:34:00.000+01:00

This is my very first post on my very first blog!
I was starting to get just a little bit cross as nothing seemed to upload properly(I was using Safari) but have now, I hope, solved it all by using Firefox instead.
In honour of my first post, I am also posting a photo of my very first completed Anime style bear.
His name is Pip and he can be seen in more detail on my website, www.bearsbygail.co.uk. Just click the photo of little Strawb at the top of the page to visit.
I don't know how often I will be updating the blog, but hopefully will have something new to share in the not too distant future! Bye for now!