New Bears

Well, I have managed to get some new bears finished. I am working on a few more and a couple of new ideas popped into my head today. I am already thinking 2009, which is unusual for me. Next month is normally a stretch much less next year. I haven't decided if these bears are going in my etsy shop or on Bid 4 Bears. Maybe Bid 4 Bears first and if they don't sell, then my etsy shop.
This first little Panda is Butterfly Kisses. The fur is the longest I have worked with in a while. I love pink and black together.


The other Panda is the newest in my Me N My Best Friend series. Mi Su is the first in the series to have a kitten instead of a puppy. Her Siamese is named Mali.

Luli the Panda in my Etsy shop

Little Luli is just 7" tall. Her pretty turquoise color came from dying with Berry Blue Kool-aid. I like dying with Kool-aid because you get such vivid colors. I found the little "take-out" purse box first and thought it would go well with a little Panda. Please visit Luli and the other critters in my Etsy shop.

I also wanted to mention how excited I am that Hopalong and the Chick Roundup won it's catagory in the Softie Easter Parade. There were a lot of great entries and Lisa did a wonderful job of putting the parade together. Check out the new blog Plush Parade for more great softies.

Japanese Fabric

I spent a good hour today looking at Japanese cotton prints on etsy. I just put Japanese fabric in the search box and all these wonderfully cute little prints come up. There were owls, bears, pigs, flowers and even mushrooms. You can get fat quarters or more of most fabrics. Mixed in with the fabrics were neat things made with Japanese prints that you can get from various etsy shops. There were hair clips, little bags and doll clothes. I ended up get a fat quarter of a prints with little panda faces. I'm thinking about the prints in the pic. They are from an etsy shop called fabricstash. Etsy definately has a better selection than my local fabric store. Actually the closest fabric store is 40 miles away. Think what I saved in gas!

Deja Vu Project

I'm not sure why I named this project Deja Vu. It was the first thing that came to my mind when I decided what I was going to do. At some point I thought I would call it something else, but I kept seeing deja vu. It turned up in books, tv, and newspaper so I stuck with it.

It was in response to a "Call for Creativity" in a magazine called Art Doll Quarterly. Using a bear pattern as a starting point add collage pieces, vintage items, or ephemera.

Deja Vu is a shadow box frame. The panda is the smallest bear I have made in mohair. I used sparse matted mohair for a vintage look. She is wearing a pink gingham dress(I struggled getting it to fit). The photos are of me around age three. I am dating myself because you can see the actual date on one of the photo edges. The panda is holding a carnival trinket I made for my dad. It is stamped "To Daddy from Nancy". Attached to the bow near the top is a locket I wore as a child. It is in the shape of a Bible and has photos of my mom and dad inside.

This was my first attempt at any kind of scrapbooking. I'm not sure if I am going to submit it to the magazine. They want the whole thing mailed to them not just a photo. I'm happy with the project anyway-it's a nice little memory box for me.

BTW-I started over on my website. Then I changed one page. I will do one at a time now!