December Bloggerations Day 15 - Cedric the Cereal Crafter

Hello there, Cedric here today. After finishing my breakfast this morning of 24 Weetabix, I was about to recycle the packaging, when the furry cogs in my brain started to whirr with an idea.. Why not use the card for craft projects?


I cut the box into the correct size to pass through the Cricut machine


and cut the number 25 at 5" from the Type Candy cartridge. The negative could be used as a giant stencil for another project in future.


As I was decorating a plain gift bag for a 25th birthday present. I also wanted some balloons, out came the Woodware balloon punch. Using the bears' special method. I cut several balloon shapes. Does my tail look big in this outfit????



I spritzed and glittered the letters and numbers, and adhered them to the bag. This is best done at least the day before you need to use the bag as the decorations need time to really stick.



Now I need to go and eat more cereal, in order to collect more card for my next craft project.

Oh, the Advent? It was Pooh's turn to open the present today, along with Beargles. We're not sure how Horace got in on the act again.



Today's present is some fabulous Distress stickles. Wow, how lucky are we?


Horace looks like he has an idea for them already


With love from the bears.

December Bloggerations Day 14 - Advent for the Bears

Hello there, the bears are today starting to enjoy an advent organised between our very best friends. In 2004 we joined a craft forum and met the best friends we could ever hope to meet. Despite all being human, they accepted the bears into their little group, and we have had lots of fun, love and laughter ever since.

Every year we like to do something to celebrate Christmas as a group, and this year our esteemed member, Jeeps, came up with the idea of The Twelve Days of GOGvent (GOGs being the group name). The idea is that we draw a name, and buy 12 presents for our swappee, one for each day from today, with the present for the 25th being slighter larger, or of a bigger monetary value. In previous years we've had GOGvent which lasted every day of December, secret Santa, where we buy one gift for one person to open on the big day, and many other non-Christmas swaps, including circle journals, calendar and ATC swaps. It's so lovely to be part of such a wonderful, supportive group, who love you no matter what (even if you're furry and tend to eat the group chocolate rations!) taking part in our version of Advent is a lovely way to celebrate our long lasting friendship.

This is our GOGvent parcel, from as yet unknown sender, we all find out who has sent our parcel on Christmas day




The bears were so excited to receive our parcel, and have been prodding and poking ever since, apart from Wilbear of course, who is much more reserved and unexcited, being an older and more curmudgeonly bear.

We have some beautiful tags on our presents







All of which we will keep, and use in some way.


Today, Horace and Cedric shared the present opening ceremony, with the other bears looking on longingly, they'll get their turn another day



This was today's most scrummy present



Making Memories journal tags!! Now we all know how the bears love tags, and these are almost too nice to use. Maybe we'll just sit and stroke them instead.

With love from the bears.

December Bloggerations Day 13 - Horace Gets Misty

Hello there. Horace here with you today in my wintery finery to show you a misted background to use in your art journals or scrapbook pages, or any of your crafts really.



The bears recently attended a workshop at our local Paper craft shop. Papermaze, in Otley, where we were shown how to create our own backgrounds for scrapbook pages, rather than buy patterned paper. The following is taken from inspiration from the class, which we really enjoyed,

First I bought some 12 x 12 chipboard, as this can take heavily painted and misty backgrounds,


Next, I primed the chipboard with some white acrylic paint.


Which I spread evenly over the chipboard.


And dried with the heat gun.


I chose 2 Dylusions sprays


And began to spritz to my furry heart's content. First, the red to the edges, then the blue to the middle, blending a little as I spritzed.


I'm not sure if I was a little impatient and didn't wait long enough for the acrylic paint to dry, or if Dylusions react differently to Tattered Angels sprays, which we had used at the class, but my mist seemed to soak into my chipboard rather a lot. I did ask the class tutor what could have gone wrong when I next saw her but she had no idea. Maybe it will remain one of the 7 mysteries of the crafting world.


Not to be daunted, I just added a tonne more mist, kept calm, and carried on crafting! I chose a mask,


and added some distress inks randomly to the (dried) background through it, in contrasting colours.


Next, I used my Sizzix bigz die to cut some flowers and leaves, which I misted with glimmery shimmery mists, whilst wearing my pawtective glove, to save having shimmery fur. I alternately scrunched and dried the flowers, to produce a more rustic look to them.


I folded then sanded the leaves, to resemble the vines running through real leaves (another technique learnt at a Papermaze workshop).



To add a little more interest to the page, I stamped some random images directly onto my spritzed background. This really is an anything goes project, why don't you try it. It's a way to produce some really unique backgrounds, and you can create different effects with each play, depending on which mists, masks and stamps you use.


With love from the bears.

WOYWW - Stampy Donations

Hello there, wow, after today there's only one Wednesday left until Christmas, which means only one more peek at crafters' workdesks worldwide, courtesy of Julia at WOYWW

on our workdesk today, Christmas has come early to the bears this year. We had a lovely delivery from the post-bear.....




Full of stampy donations from a wonderful friend. We all gathered round the desk to see what was in the bulging bag of goodies.




Wow, how lucky are we? We shall be using these to make some charity cards after Christmas.




Wilbear is off to the hospbeartal today, so an ultra short post from us. Do we win a prize for shortest ever WOYWW post from The House of Bears?
With love from the bears.

December Bloggerations Day 11 - A New Bearby Card

Hello there, Santa paws with you today, no, of course it's not Pooh in disguise, what gave you that idea!!!!

I'm here today to show you a paw made card for a new bearby born recently, a little girl cub. How lovely, and a great reason to get the card making stash out. First, my favourite stamp, Aloysius the bear of course!


I chose some vintage and girly colour distress inks


And invented a new way to really get your images to show on your card. Is this why they're called stamps?



After stamping my image, I used my Tattered Rose distress ink to colour over it, for a softer look.


I then cut the image, and used the corner rounder, in my own inimitable style.



I knew the boots would be useful for something!!

I made a frame for the bear card topper with a scroll stamp, to add extra interest to the card.



I then found some 6x6 vintage style patterned papers from our 6x6 paper stash mountain, and assembled my card. I added the new bearby's name, as a pawsonalised card always goes down well.


Now I just need to find a willing volunteer to go to the Post Office with my creation, it's going all the way to America.

With love from the bears.

December Bloggerations Day 10 - The Bears Meet Santa

Hello there, we've been queuing today to meet Santa. The queue stretched all the way down the hall and some of us had a long wait.


Pooh asked for an extra large jar of hunny. Big enough to last all year. I wonder if such a jar exists.


With love from the bears.

Our winner

After a claw-bitingly tense tie-breaker between sylvia with 18 guesses and Sunshinestitcher with 14 guesses, our eventual winner is...............


Sunshine Stitcher


Who correctly answered the grippingly exciting question of who was the first bear to write an individual post and what was the title of said post with the answer


Podgy, with Paw-made by Podgy.


Yay, well done, we're looking forward to hearing which tag you would like, and who you would like it pawtographed by.

We had such fun with our compoohtition, and would like to thank everyone who joined in with the fun, and in fact, everyone who follows, comments or reads our blog and joins in with the madness that is The House of Bears. This blog would not be half as fun to write without knowing you all support us.


With love from the bears.