WOYWW - bags!

Helloooooo, long time no WOYWW (click the link if you're curious to know what the acronym stands for). Anyway. It's Horace here today making something for nothing again. We do like our free or using up stash makes here at The House of Bears.

So, you can see a paper bag, more bags to the right, scissors, a bone folder, the back of my head......



I might just be making a paper bag book. We've been collecting the paper bags given out with various shopping, and Tesco now bring our home delivery fruit and veg in large paper bags too. Wilbear insists we have our five a day so the Tesco bags are in plentiful supply here. ( other supermarkets are available but may not supply paper bags! )


Anyway, so far all I have to show for my morning's efforts are a pile of what looks like it needs to go in the recycling, so I'd better get crafting before Wilbear does just that. I'll post the results when I'm done.

Ttfn

With love from the bears.

In The Background

Hello friends. Horace here today to apologise for being so remiss in keeping the blog up to date. A comment from the lovely Ali H inspired me to get crafting and write a catch up for our friends. First I had to get dressed in warm clothes as the temperature has really dropped the last couple of days. Of course, as soon as I dressed up, the sun decided to make an appearance!



I'd previously ripped some project ideas from Craft Stamper magazine


I decided to make some corrugated stamp backgrounds. I have to use up this never ending roll of card I bought over a year ago somehow.


Despite gifting half the roll to the cub, then using lots of the roll for textured pages in the art journals, then making two of these dos a dos books......











I still have enough left to paper a small house. On with the stamping technique: hang on, has anyone seen my scissors? How can I cut the card without them?


Oh! What are they doing in the paintbrush pot?


Never mind, carry on crafting. I cut a long strip of card



And then cut this into smaller pieces


I reread my instructions..... Which suggested gluing the corrugated card onto a thicker, more sturdy piece of card.



I didn't have any thicker card, so impawvised.


I pawrused the ink box...



I was feeling in a purple and red mood.


I swiped the distress ink over the card


And stamped it immediately onto my page, to avoid the ink drying out too much. As you see, I used the bears' own inimitable style of stamping.


I had a previously started page in the journal, so that's where I decided my stamping would go; as that's where the book flopped open.


The stamping came out quite faintly


So I restamped, this time sitting on the stamp a little longer.


I stamped randomly over the page, in red and purple. I like this style of stamping as you never know quite what you'll produce. The results depend on how firmly you press, and whether the card yields under pressure.


I decided to add some green to my page


And simply swirled it over the page


To create this effect.



Voila, one easy, freebie background. Created from existing supplies.



This technique could be used for card making, tags, postcards or ATC backgrounds. Why don't you try it?

With love from the bears

Bag it up

Well Hello there dear friends. I've been busy with my new passion, bag making. Wilbear bought me a sewing machine back in May, and I've been learning how to use it by sewing various stuffed toys and so on. I searched Youtube for tutorials on any easy makes and found a fabulous sewing lady, Debbie Shore. I particularly like one of her simple lined bag makes, so much so that I've now made it 8 times in various sizes and patterns. Here are just a few of my makes using her tutorial.














I think I'm a little addicted. Check out her Youtube account here, or, for the tutorial I followed to make my bags, look Right here.
I had a little fabric left over from one of my bag makes, so cut it into two little tote sized shapes, with lining fabric of the same size.


To make the handles, I followed Debbie's instructions to cut two lengths of fabric to 19" long by 3 1/2" wide...


I folded these in half, unfolded, then folded into the crease.


To create a handle


Which I pressed, in my own, inimitable style!! You won't see this on the original tutorial!


I then sewed a zigzag stitch along the side of the handles


Next, I attached the handles to the right sides of the outer fabric, using my tape measure to make sure the handles were even.


I then attached the lining fabric


And stitched along the tops of the bag, sewing the handles into place.


Like so, or should that be sew??


Now I needed to sew the bag together, I made sure the seams matched,


then sewed my bags up, leaving a small gap so that they could be turned right way out at the end. To make a more boxy shape, I followed Debbie's advice to cut a 2" triangle to each corner and then cut across. Debbie explains this so much better than I can!


Next, I turned my bag right way out


I stitched up my lining where I'd left the gap for turning. I did this by machine as my paw sewing is less than perfect!


Voila, my latest mini tote makes.


Complete with neat lining





I'm planning on gifting my makes to friends for birthdays and Christmas, hopefully they'll like them, or at least pretend to!

I'm off to watch more Youtube video from Debbie. What fun.
With love from the bears

Baking Inspiration

Aloha friends, it's Podgy here again today, aren't you all lucky to share my company again so soon? For any of you good peeps in the UK, have you been watching it? What do you mean, what is IT? The Great British Bake Off of course! I tune in for my weekly fix, and always feel inspired to make something straight after. This week was biscuit week, so what better than to don my chef whites and get baking?

We don't have the most recent Bake Off tie in book, yet, but we do have the first book in the series, so I pawrused that for some inspawration.




Mmmm ginger biccies, that was my first make decided. I gathered some ingredients and posed for a photo opportunity...


Then I got baking, with the help of my trusty mixer, Sir Ken-of-the-wood. He makes baking so much more simpler, and saves my poor paws from many an ache.


I considered making one giant biscuit


But conceded the other bears might lynch me if I did, so I divided the dough into measly morsels and baked (them, not me) in my very hot oven...


Keeping a beady eye on them to make sure they didn't walk off onto other bears' paws!!


Look at those yumsome perfectious biscuitynesses (yes, they are all proper words, I made them up so they must be.)


Not yet content with my most marvellous feat, I pawrused the Internet for more inspawration and found a recipe for Peanut butter cookies


These were really simple to make, and even simpler to eat.


I started with one biscuit for each paw, as any self respecting baking bear should do. Now, I'm off to find more baking inspiration.


See you soon.

With love from the bears