I'm Back!

It's been a long while since I wrote here on my blog, as you can see from the date since my last post.

A lot of general life and family things just seemed to get in the way of my bear-making passion, and I've got to be honest: I felt like I had lost my way for a while - after returning from our holiday, my job was just so busy at work, and I was always so tired: and then Christmas preparations ... like so many others, I just simply lost my enthusiasm for creating and designing new bears: I'd lost my mojo and I didn't feel like I would ever get it back. I'm sure this happens to all of us at one time or another, but it's a really depressing thought to be surrounded by fabulous alpaca and mohair, loads of hand-crafted bear claws and hand-painted eyes - and not have the inclination to put them all together.

We did however, enjoy our trips to Thailand and Hong Kong, and then to Cambodia for a very dear friend's wedding back in November - a whirlwind trip of one week - I hope you enjoy this little peek:

Here's a view of the Tonle-Sap River where it joins the Mekhong River at Phnom Penh, overlooking the Royal Palace complex at night - just breathtaking!

The sad reality of the Killing Fields memorial shrine in Phnom Penh, where tens of thousands lost their lives at the hand of Pol Pot in the 1970's:

Beautiful relics in the National Museum in Phnom Penh:

Looking back now, that holiday seems like a lifetime ago!!! I'll post photos of our Hong Kong trip in another blog post!

When I packed away my bears for a while, I had 3 bears on the go and great plans for a swap bear with my great friend Wayne Lim of Wayneston Bears in Singapore.

Only last week, Wayne and I chatted about when we would conduct our swap and we've decided on a time frame - hoping we can swap in person! It's just the lift I needed! It's of course early days, but I have already finished sewing Wayne's bear, I'm updating my blog, and I'm going to have a new Nikkel Bear available for adoption in the next week or so!

I think my mojo is slowly returning - with the announcement of the 2014 TOBY awards this week, I've rekindled my interest in work other artists are doing and the wonderful pieces everyone has created, so I'm hopeful of getting back into the swing of bear creating! I've got a few design ideas ... just got to get them on paper!

Wish me luck - I think I'm going to like being back!!

The Noses have It!

I thought I'd do something a little bit different to my usual posts here on my blog, and talk to you about noses.

As you've no doubt noticed, I've been needle felting noses on my latest bears - doing this is a complete change for me: in the beginning I embroidered all of my noses, trying to perfect the ultimate system for keeping all of the threads uniform and neat. Then I tried baked clay noses for a while - and while both of these mediums were lots of fun, I wanted to learn more ....

.... and so I found needle felting!

I really love the realistic style of bears produced by Joanne Livingstone of Desertmountain Bears and Heidi Hollis of Citico Ridge Bears, however, I still wanted to keep my own contemporary style bear but add nuances of realism here and there.

So I studied all types of noses - here's just a few!

Once I started studying noses in the animal world, I couldn't believe how very different they all are - as you can see from these photos!

Here's a sample of my latest bears - all with needle felted noses - which I'm very proud of!

I hope you like the direction I'm taking with my latest bear cubs ... I'm sure there's plenty more for me to learn, but for the moment, I've learned a few new things, and am having lots of fun doing it!

Until next time,

Hugs,
Marg xoxo

URSA Awards Finalist!!!!

Wow!!!! My bear JIA LI announced as a 2013 URSA Finalist!

I can't begin to tell you how happy I am: I've just heard the news that my beautiful Chinese princess bear Jia Li has reached the final round of the 2013 URSA Awards!

At the moment there are 3 finalists in each Category so each of us do not know yet whether or not we've won 1st, 2nd or 3rd place, and the organisers have already said that there's not many points between some of the competitors! How close is that!!! There were some really fantastic pieces entered this year - I'm not surprised that the voting was close!

Thank you to all of you for taking the time to vote for JIA LI - you guys are just the best!

The final round of voting is open from August 12 to September 9 - I would love it if you would find the time to place your final vote for Jia Li in the Diva's Category - just follow this link to take you to the voting page on the Bears & Buds website.

All of these final round votes add on to the votes already placed for each entry - a few votes could be the difference!!!

Good luck to all of the other finalists - it's certainly been a nail-biting finish this year. The overall winners will be announced in the Bears & Buds Online Magazine on October 1st.

As you can imagine, I already have my fingers and toes xxx'd!

Hugs,
Marg xx

New Website News and Other Stuff!

I'm so excited to have launched my brand-new website - I do hope you can find time to pop over and have a browse ... and I'd love to get your feedback - just click here for the link.

I'm so grateful to the help given to me by Helen Gleeson from Bear Cub Designs and Easy ArtSpace - the site was so very simple to set up and I've been having loads of fun adding new things ... a bit here and a bit there ... it all takes time, doesn't it?

For the first time EVER, I also posted a brand new bear on my website for sale, and offered him only to my lovely, loyal mailing list members and he was adopted pretty much straight away! I couldn't believe it ... it was a lovely surprise!

Just the tonic to boost an aching heart from losing my mum to a short illness the same week - I'm sure my success is due to her watching over me - here's a picture of my mum on her wedding day ... isn't she beautiful? I miss you mum xoxo

2013 URSA Awards - Voting is Open!

Hey, everyone! How quickly does 12 months pass by? Can you believe it's 12 months already since last year's URSA Awards!!!

Hope you can drop by to check out all the wonderful beary eye candy in this year's contest - just follow this link which will take you straight to the voting pages on the Bears & Buds online magazine website.

I have two bears nominated for this year's awards - firstly my Chinese princess bear 'Jia Li' in Category 7 (Diva's). You'll recall earlier this year that this girl was a commision bear made exclusively for a Cambodian bride-to-be - a gift from her fiance. Very romantic, and loads and loads of costume detailing.

My second bear, or rather - panda: is 'Jasper' my Christmas panda in Category 12 (Pandas) (no surprise there ha! ha!) I'm so thrilled that Jasper has already won a prestigious TOBY Industry Choice Awards, and is currently also nominated for a TOBY People's Choice Awards which will be announced in October this year.

Voting is open until 31st July - and what happens after that? Well, the 3 entries from each category with the highest amount of votes goes through to the second round voting. In the second round, only 1 entry can be chosen for the ultimate prize - the URSA Major award ... very prestigious, and I'm so honoured to be amongst some wonderful and very talented bear artists, both from home (Australia) and abroad.

Good luck to everyone - it's going to be very hard to choose!!!

Whirlwind of Bear Shows ... an update!

Gosh! I can't believe it's been so long since this blog was updated! So much has happened in my world since the Sydney Teddy Bear Fair, I'm not sure exactly where to start, so here goes!

First news I simply must tell you (and which you probably already know about LOL!!!) is my precious little panda Jasper won a 2013 TOBY Industry Award - I can't tell you how exciting that was for me and I've now received his beautiful sparkling crystal trophy the TOBY awards are renowned for! His mum lives on the other side of the world from me, and she's just as thrilled as I am with the award win!

So, now it's all about voting for the 2013 TOBY People's Choice awards (all of the Industry Choice winners are finalists) - and here's where you come in! To cast your vote just click here which will take you to the Teddy Bear & Friends site and then just follow the links. Voting closes 1st July 2013, so there's only now just over a week left to place your vote!

My bears and I have also been travelling the length of Australia - firstly in May to attend the Melbourne Teddy Bear Fair and more recently this past weekend to Brisbane's Winter Wonderland Doll & Bear Fair. I've met so many lovely new collectors and people who have shown interest in my bears, and also had wonderful chats with my bear artist friends from around the country (and from overseas!) - Australia is such a big country, we don't get to see each other in person very often and travelling can be quite costly!

I thought I'd share some of my photos from both shows with you - enjoy!

These were taken around Melbourne and at the Melbourne Teddy Bear Fair:

and here's some from the Winter Wonderland Doll & Bear Show in Brisbane: