Pooh Tries a Texture Technique

Hello there to our lovely visitors, old and new, how lovely of you to pad your paws this way to see what the bears are up to.
You may know that we have a bit of a magazine habit here at The House of Bears, but Wilbear was grumbling that we never try out any of the techniques in them, and threatened to stop our pawcket money if we didn't try at least one idea a month. So, I hot-pawed it to the bears' desk to peruse magazines for ideas, and found this idea for textured backgrounds, using Gesso, in November's Craft Stamper magazine.




For those of you who are Craft Stamper-less. I shall show you my interpretation of the project. CS showed a Christmas themed project, but I thought, seeing as it's October, I would utilise our Spooky stamps, and try a Halloween theme.
First, I cut two squares of scary orange card to 4"x4" - oooh look, can you spot my furry shadow on the card? Spoooooooky!




But not as spooky as my Pumpkin costume; well, a Halloween project called for a Halloween outfit!




Back to my how to -although if you wish, you can follow my lead and change into something that matches your individual project, in order to make it more meaningful- anyhow, next step, Gesso. I Gathered a large gloop of the stuff on a sponge applicator




And spread thickly on the two pieces of cut card.




I squidged (very technical term that) the two pieces of card together.




To achieve the maximum effect, I stood on my card sandwich, oooh squelchy!




Ugh, Gessoed slipper, maybe that wasn't my best idea.




(Once I'd wiped my slipper)
I carefully peeled the card apart to reveal two lovely textured pieces of card. Which then need to be left to dry overnight. Zzzzz




Next morning, still in the same clothes as the day before... The CS project suggests certain supplies, including water colour crayons; the bears don't possess a lot of craft stuff, as we gave our stash away in a fit of madness late last year, and are now rebuilding our craft Cupboards. We were lucky to have these chalk pastels donated to us by our fab friend, Florence, so I thought they would do the job just as well.




Now, a lot of commentators on the blog ask how come the bears have such clean paws despite getting very inky on occasion. Shall I let you into our secret? Rubber gloves!!! We've yet to find paw - sized gloves, so have to make do with the hand shaped variety!




With rubber glove on, I selected some chalks, (choose two or three coordinating colours,) mine were red, yellow, orange, and a bit of black, for added atmosphere.




With the chalks, I scribbled randomly on my gessoed card, gosh, I haven't coloured in such a random manner since I was a cub!




Next, I sprayed water liberally over the chalky design, and blended one colour into another.




This is why we don't have inky paws, we have inky gloves.




I had to leave the coloured and blended card to dry completely. This is what they looked like.




Ugh, I just looked in our mirror, and noticed Gesso on my furry face, can you spot it? What a messy bear, maybe I need a face mask for my next art project?




Next, I needed to add some decoration to my textured backgrounds. I chose a slightly lighter orange card




And some suitable stamps.




I stamped on my acrylic block, oops, I think I should have stamped the block, not stamped on the block! Oh well, it achieved the same outcome!




I randomly stamped my images directly onto the textured card for a background effect, and also by stamping onto card and cutting and sticking to the textured background for a more pronounced effect.




Here are my finished projects. I think that displaying them with me in the middle really lends my project that perfect finish.




But just in case you don't agree, here they are on the easel




I thought I'd enter into the following challenges with the picture below
Anything Goes
eerie Inspiration
Halloween or fall colours




Now, what can I use them for?
disclaimer the bears do not accept any responsibility for accidents occurring due to persons (or bears) following any of Pooh's more silly suggestions, IE, standing on your gessoed squares, or your acrylic blocks!!
With love from the bears.

Wilbear's new kitchen toy

Hello there lovely visitors. I'm a happy bear today as I took delivery of this little beauty just the other day



I've been ex'bear'imenting with it ever since. We bought lots of different ground coffee to try, as the machine makes filter coffee, espressos, lattes, cappuccinos.... So much choice.


As well as buying ground espresso coffee, we purchased these fab pods, which make two mugs of latte at once.


We like syrup with our latte, so I took a trip to a local coffee chain, to buy these miniature bottles of cinnamon, vanilla, gingerbread, caramel and hazelnut.


The water tank is large, enabling me to have a fair few drinks before replenishing it.


The pods fit into the two scoop thingy (no idea what it's called but it holds the ground coffee and the pads. ) If using ground coffee it needs to be tampered down, to ensure maximum yield from your espresso.


Our machine has a handy frother


for the milk.


Good job I didn't fill the jug up, as the milk doubles in size as it froths.


No latte would be complete without a little biscuit


I chose cinnamon syrup this time


To which I added my frothed milk.


and then the espresso, to make a lovely latte for myself.


I invited Cedric to share it with me, coffee is always better shared with friends.


I've also made cappuccino, which is delicious with a sprinkling of chocolate powder on top ( and another biscuit on the saucer!)


I also made a mocha, by adding two scoops of Cadbeary highlights drink to the bottom of my latte glass, and combining with a little of the frothed milk, before adding the rest of the milk, and of course the espresso. Oh look, another little biscuit, I can feel my fur expanding!


Time for another drink, gingerbread latte this time I think. My favourite.




With love from the bears.

WOYWW - Not Much Actually

Good morning, Horace the blog hogger here again to welcome you to another Wednesday in Blogland. We do love Wednesdays here at The House of Bears. Why? Because we get to have a sneaky peek at crafty desks worldwide, courtesy of our host, Julia, at Stamping Ground If you want to know more, click your furry paw on the link to her fab blog, but beware, it's ever so slightly addictive.
So, onto the bears' desk....
This week there's not an awful lot going on at the desk. Cedric has been busy decorating the lounge for us ( he's still trying to persuade us to let him stay). Podgy and Pooh seem to be suffering from autumn apathy and are semi hibernating in the bears' bed, and Wilbear has been busy playing with a new kitchen gadget, which I'll leave him to explain in a blog post of his own some time.
So, that leaves the desk free for yours truly. I decided to take a trip to our local Paper craft shop, Papermaze, to choose some supplies for my holiday photos. I'm planning a scrapbook page of my visit to the Tram Museum, at Crich, so I carefully selected some co ordinating patterned paper to complement my photo, some adhesive tape refill, and a Scrap 365 magazine for inspiration.




This is my tram pic, This was one of the trams in operation on the day I visited, and I enjoyed a trip up and down the village on it. We were given an old penny with which to purchase our tram ticket, what fun.




I bought the patterned paper below as the Museum had lots of vintage ads around the site. I thought I could utilise it on my page somehow.




Now, a quick look at my Scrap365 mag and I'll be ready to create my page, after a visit to a few crafty desks that is.




Oh, and if you like challenges, don't forget, we have our own, just for fun, literary based monthly challenges. there's plenty of time to enter this month's Dracula inspired challenge

With love from the bears.

A Little Bit of Time

Oh! Hello there, Horace here again. You've caught me in the middle of contemplating a half finished art journal page!




The left hand side of this was completed some time ago, when we first ventured into art journalling, but not knowing that it was better to complete double pages, we were then left with the dilemma of what to do with the blank right hand page staring woefully up at us every time we wanted to admire our work.




'Never fear, Horace is here' , said I, in my bravest bear voice, and set to my best contemplating pose...... Blue background, hmm, okay, but pretty ordinary and too simple for this arty bear...




So I added some random stamping




Resorting to our tried and tested stamping method; if it won't print, sit on it! I'm wondering if we should trademark this special move of ours?




I took some time to admire my stamped background, but the page needed more. So I cut some rabbit and butterfly embellishments from our Alice papers, to match the rabbit on the left hand side.




I thought the rabbit running in circles and alternately appearing and disappearing depicted his panic at time disappearing before his very eyes.




Here's a close up for you.



Thanks to being inspired by the very talented Butterfly I'm going to enter this into Crafty bloggers, Anything goes challenge

and

Eclecticellapu's anything goes challenge


I hope the other bears appreciate my hard work. I'm exhausted now, I must have a little bear snoozezzzzzzzzz
With love from the bears.