Wilbear's Wonderful Toppers

Hello there,

Wilbear here with a quick post to show you the toppers I made with some Jolees stickers donated by a very kind friend of ours.




I made these to replenish our pre made toppers box, which the other bears seem to deplete on a regular basis, I wouldn't mind but they never make more to keep the box topped up.

Here are close ups of two of my favourite makes




I thought my comic sentiment was a great idea. Have a purrfect day goes so well with this cat picture




Our good friend also sent some foam die cuts, and I thought up this amusing sentiment to go with the whale. the blue wavy card was made with our Fiskars cutter and Scallop blade. I thought it made a good wave effect.

Hopefully I'll actually be able to use these myself, rather than the other bears raiding the box again!

With love from the bears 🐻

Podgy's perfect papercraft

On pawrusing one of our many craft magazines this month I came across this project.


'Ah ha' thought I, this is perfect for my tea stained pages from my previous post.

First I cut myself some tags with my Sizzix die


Then I selected some brown card


And made two envelopes, which I embossed using my Cuttlebug Swirl embossing folder.


I then had a little looky through our ephemera box, there are lots of previously cut or stamped treasures in here. I chose some stamped and cut butterflies, we don't actually own these stamps, we borrowed them from our crafty friend, Florence.


We keep all our ephemera in see through bags, so it's easy to see what you have when you're looking for inspiration for your latest project.


Next I raided our own stamp box, and found these lovely Papermania stamps.


Once the tags had been cut and the embellishments chosen, I ventured over to the ink and misting drawer. I had a feeling this was going to be a rather messy project.


So, now I was ready to actually start my creativity.

I inked up one of the Papermania stamps in Whispers brown ink. It's a good job my paws are dark, as the brown ink can really stain!


I stamped the image directly onto one of my cut tags.





I stamped the second tag in a complimentary theme, and added these to the envelopes.


Now I needed some smaller tags, Again I chose some stamps from the Papermania pack and decorated the tags, again in brown inks.


From the ephemera bag I selected some die cut flowers, these are from a Tim Holtz die, but I'm not sure of the name of it, as we cut them at a Papermaze crop last month.


The flowers were inked and distressed, then layered up


I then chose a coordinating piece of patterned paper, this is also from the Papermania range. I inked and distressed the edges of this, oh, and tore one of the edges for a more shabby look to my cards.


Then it was time to assemble my various bits and pieces.


This is where my previously tea stained papers came in handy. I selected two, tore the edges, and inked and misted over the text, to produce an even more aged effect.

The aged papers were adhered to blank cards, which had been decorated with the Papermania patterned paper as the base.


Then the tags in envelopes were added, and on top of that, all the ephemera I had chosen.

Here are the finished cards



And a close up. A good luck card


And a happy birthday card.


And plenty of aged papers left over to make more cards later.

With love from the bears 🐻

Tea staining with Podgy

Here's my handy guide on aging papers for crafting, no need for expensive inks. Just use good old English tea.

First, find an old book, not a valuable one, they can be sold to make money for honey!!



Rip out some pages with interesting (or boring) text


Make yourself a strong cup of tea, mind your paws, the water will be hot, and the kettle very heavy!


Don't discard the teabag, dunk it into your tea, then lift straight out and onto your torn pages


Dab a random pattern over the text


Alternatively, place the page into the sink, then drip tea onto it from a teaspoon.


Hang the pages out to dry




Drink your tea, ahh, that's better, crafting really works up a thirst.


I'll be back when my pages have dried, to show you how to use them on a craft project. Now where are the biscuits to dunk in the tea?

With love from the bears 🐻

Wilbear's Wonderful Chocolate Celebearation cake

To celebrate the Jubearlee I thought I would make the other bears a nice chocolate cake

For my Elizabear sponge you will need

6oz butter, softened
6oz caster sugar
3 free range eggs
6oz self raising flour (replace one tbsp of this with
1tbsp chocolate powder)

First preheat your oven to 180 degrees, and line and grease two shallow cake pans. To do this it's a good idea to draw a template so you know your baking paper will fit pawfectly.




Be careful with sharp scissors, cut carefully round the template and place in your pan







Once you've greased it of course!






Now, weigh your ingredients carefully, the pawfect cake depends on pawfect measuring



Whizz the butter and caster sugar in a food processor, or if you're a real glutton for punishment, mix by hand


Once the butter and sugar are mixed and creamy, add the eggs, one at a time. The addition of a spoonful of flour at this stage helps to stop the mixture curdling.


Once the eggs are thoroughly beaten in, sieve the flour and chocolate powder, and whizz once more, until everything is nicely combined. You may need to scrape the edges of the mixer to make sure all the flour has mixed in. We don't want bears chewing on floury pockets later.


Add the mix to your cake pans



A good tip to make sure your mixture is evenly distributed is to weigh each pan as you add the cake batter.

Cook the cakes in the oven for around 20 minutes, until the cake springs back when lightly pressed, or a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.


Once the cakes have cooled in their tins for about 5 minutes, carefully turn out onto wire racks and cool completely


When the cakes are completely cooled, add your choice of filling. Of course, mine has to be chocolate. I made this by creaming together 6oz of sieved icing sugar and 1oz of chocolate powder with 3oz of softened butter. It's my favourite cake filling.


Sandwich the cakes together


Cut yourself a huge slice and enjoy.



With love from the bears 🐻

Jubearlee Party

This is such a special occasion, we couldn't let it pass without a party to celebrate our dear Queen Elizabear's phenomenal reign.

Wilbear made us a delicious quiche, full of great British ingredients, and with the left over pastry he made us some jam tarts, strawberry flavour, our favourites.


Horace made ham and cheesy triangle sandwiches, and we also also had red white and blue fancies, and a very patriotic tin of choccy biscuits. It didn't take us long to polish it all off!


We had our picnic indoors, as the weather outside was far too dreary for furry bears, Imagine the state of our fur if we'd sat in the rain all afternoon.

We dressed in red, white and blue, Podgy overslept and turned up in his dressing gown! He said at least it was the right colour!


We watched the Queen's pageant on TV, her madgbeary looked very chilly. We waved our flags at her to cheer her up.


Podgy went a little OTT on the sparkling wine, he can never hold his drink.



We hope you all had a splendid Jubearlee weekend, and we would like to wish his Royal Furness Prince Philbear a speedy recovery from his sudden malady.

With love from the bears 🐻