Day 3. The end is. Nigh

Hello again, yes, it's Cedric the brave here sneaking up for yet another play time while the other bears are taking an afternoon siesta. I told them I'd keep guard for hunny thieves while they snoozed.

So, remember all those pieces of junk? Well they've all been papered or painted or stamped, or all three, and now I need to bind them into a book shape. Horace bought himself a fabulous ebear purchase a couple of weeks ago- a Cinch. I thought I might see how it works.



First I'll sort my junk pieces into something resembling a book


Now to punch some holes for the binding wires. Goodness, this is hard work.


The cinch has a handy holder for the wire and punched card so you can assemble the book as you go. I placed all the inner card on first.


Then the front cover


And finally the back cover, the wrong way round, so when you fold it back over it hides the joins in the wires.


I then used the handy squishy thing on the Cinch


It has different height settings so you can use all sizes of wires. Good job as this book has grown rather fat with junk.


Oooh, I'm rather pleased with the end result.





My wires are a little out of shape as I put all four paws worth of pressure on the Cinch. Who cares though? Not me. :)


Inside are all manner of sizes of card. The left hand card came from a Bear fruit roll snack! The right hand was the tab from a latte box!


I added some tags, as we have about 3 gazillion of them.





Goodness, I managed a matching page.


One of the misted and stamped pages.


Ooh, a matching tab too.


Tree tab


I added a stamped design to the front to add a little interest. Now I'll sit on the bed and pretend I've been here all afternoon.



What? This old book? I've had it for ages!!!!

With love from the bears

Sneaky play day two.

Hullo there again. The bears popped out today for a walk in the woods. I wasn't allowed to go as last time I fell down a rabbit hole and sparked a major policebear hunt including helicopters and even the beararmy! They found me eventually taking tea with Alice.

Anyway, while the bears are away I threw a few (hundred) things on the kitchen table to carry on my junk type journal.



To all my pre cut Gessoed bits of card I added some misty colourfulness. The Gesso means that even if you spray dylusions on the card it creates a lovely pastel effect. Just spray the Gessoed pieces with water, mist your spray and leave it to sit for a minute, then dab the excess off with kitchen roll. If it looks too insipid you can add more mist over the top. Keep going until you're happy with the results then dry the card with a heat gun.


Look at the difference between the first spray and the dabbed end result


Now for the backs of the Sprayed card. These are too shiny to spray so I utilised a pack of patterned card we've had forever


Voila. Now I just have to wait for the covers to dry off. I added mist to these too then gave them a coat of PVA glue over the top. I'll let them dry overnight and persuade the bears they need another outing tomorrow, to allow me time to assemble this part work project!


I might as well have something to eat while I'm waiting. Ooh, Podgy made me a lovely loaf of bread for lunch.


Bon appetite.


With love from the bears

Cedric sneaks a play

Hullo there, it's Cedric here. I'm sneaking a quick play while the ever studious Wilbear is away from the desk supervising podgy's sharing of the weekly treats. I'm too clumsy to be allowed my own craft stash, last time I broke the paper trimmer and glued Pooh's paw to the desk so now I just grab sneaky opportunities to jump up here and play with whatever I can grab in the allotted time. Today I grabbed junk!!! Lots of junk!!!






Look at all that recycled loveliness. Wilbear won't let us chuck a thing out. He says Horace spends far too much of the bear budget on art and craft goods, so now he saves every bit of cardboard and paper that he can get his furry paws on.





Anyway, waste not etc. Podgy had just bought himself this cake pops stand (he's sharing out the pops right now in the kitchen - I've already eaten mine), where was I? Oh yes, anyway. I knew Wilbear would insist on recycling the box so I nipped off quick with it.





It's really sturdy card, I think I'll make one of those recycled junk journals every bear raves about.





I'll use up some of the millions of latte boxes we seem to have, Wilbear drinks about 3 thousand per day to help him through his studies. No wonder he's so jittery!





Goodness, they're difficult to pull apart by paw.





I have enough here for two journals and a zillion bookmarks.





First the card needs a layer of Gesso





I won't gesso the shiny, decorated sides though. Those will be covered later with scraps of pattered paper and card. Now for the covers. As per previous journals inspired by the lovely Jenniebellie, these get a covering of scrunched up packaging paper.





Oooh I love a good scrunch every now and then. It gets out all that repressed anger I harbour that the other bears get more cake pops than me.





These will need to be dried over night, how will I manage to distract Wilbear for that long?





Yikes, I can hear him padding back in. I need to hide this lot quick smart. I'll shove it under the bed with THUTB, no one ever looks there. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak back up here over the weekend to finish the fun!

With love from the bears

Catching up

Hello there. It's Horace here to show you the results of my recycled cards journal I'd begun in my last blog post. I had two weeks to make this, as Wilbear awarded himself a study break from his course. I hopped up to the desk to make not only the recycled card journal but a friendship journal to swap with my dear human friend, Cath. Both journals were made using recycled materials.

This is the friendship journal. I made the cover from an old latte sachet box. I followed a Jenniebellie Youtube tutorial. Check out the links from my last post. She's inspirational and once you've watched her videos you'll start perusing the house for any junk that can be recycled into art. The tag for this journal is from a pair of jeans. I thought it fitted in with the painty effects on the cover.



Inside I made an envelope so we can swap notes or pictures, or send each other ATCS etc.


I also made an envelope within the journal, again we can add hidden surprises. This journal will be swapped between us. Cath has made her own journal which will be swapped too and at the end we will have a journal of friendship each. I can't wait til we start to swap these.


As with the journal we're swapping with the cub, we will do separate pages as well as some collaborations. If a page is date stamped it means it's finished but if it has no stamp we can add to it as we wish.


The recycled cards journal took absolutely ages to make, but the end result was very pleasing. Again, this was made following a JennieBellie tutorial. For the covers I brayered paint over then added random strips of leftover patterned paper.



I added a pocket or two made with more latte boxes.


Which were brayered over with paint


I also used junk ads that came with the post


Splodging paint randomly over them to cover the text.


The greetings cards were all shapes and sizes, but this added to the uniqueness of the journal.


For the picture side of the cards I covered them with scraps of patterned paper and card.


And for the insides I brayered paint randomly over, adding more over any writing.



Here's the finished journal.


I think i'll use it as a poetry and quotes book.


I hope to catch up on blog visiting over the weekend. The studying has been a lot more time consuming than we thought, and we're trying to get a balance between that, art time and resting.

With love from the bears