Trying techniques with Pooh

Hello there. how nice to see you at The House of Bears, Pooh here today. First, for anyone coming from Dragon's Dream blog, here is my tag for the self propelled flowers challenge. Just in case it gets lost in my rather long winded post that follows!!!

I used a bleaching technique copied from One of Dyan Reavely's tutorials, which I found on Youtube, if you'd like to see her wonderful blog, then press your yellow furry paw Here. Alternatively, for video tutorials, search Youtube where there is a wealth of wonderful inspiration.

To comply with the self propelled element of the Dragonsdream challenge, my flowers move, as they are secured only in the middle by a brad, allowing them to turn. I also added a butterfly just flying off the top of the tag.



I made the tag alongside my journal page, which I've bragged, er, I mean blogged about below. Now, for anyone with a spare few hours and a bout of insomnia, the waffle below may help....

As I said, I'd been watching Youtube video tutorials, and came across one by Dyan, showing how to create a bleached technique using Dylusions mists. Unfortunately, the bears don't have all of Dyan's products, but we do have all but two of the lovely mists, so I set to making a background.

In the tutorial, Dyan uses black mist, but of course that's one of the colours we don't have. Ever the enterprising bear, I decided to use the lime and turquoise mists, for a nice colour contrast. I sprayed the lime towards the middle of my page, and the turquoise to the edges.


Although I wanted a double page spread, i misted just one page, then closed the book, to transfer the mist to the opposite page. A good way to distribute the mist is to roll over your closed page.


This is what it looked like once splodged and rolled.


I then selected a stamp, the stamp needed to have a colourable middle, so I choose a small flower. Archival ink is needed as any other ink will bleed at the bleaching stage.


I stamped over the border area of my misted background.





Then took a watercolour pen, filled with water (obviously) and 'painted' the petals of the flowers


This technique removes some of the mist, as you can see below.


I blotted the page with kitchen roll as I painted the petals, and also occasionally blotted my pen, to prevent it becoming logged with the mist I'd removed.


My next step was to spray a piece of white card with Bubblegum pink mist, dry it with my heat gun, and press the same stamp as I used on my background into my splodge (ooh I do love that word!)


I stamped and cut several flowers and placed them randomly around my page


Then it was Cricut time, I used the Heritage and Type Candy cartridges to print words and leaves.





Which I then adhered to my page, along with some flower stalks.


My finished project. The journalling was inspired by the song, Flowers in the Window, by Travis - as I was stamping the flowers onto my misted background, the song was revolving around my furry head. I thought that it made a cheery sentiment, and a suggestion of something nice to do on dreary days, flowers brighten up the dullest day don't they?

After finding a lovely new white journalling pen in the bears stash, I highlihted my words to make them stand out a little more



A close up of the left hand side



And one of the right.



I really loved creating my page, and am so thankful for the wonderful wealth of crafty knowledge on the Internet. Bears have very small brains, and need lots of inspawration.

TTFN (time to find new idea).

With love from the bears.

Mixed Media Ex'bear'imenting

Hello there, Horace here to entertain you today. The team over at Smudgy Antics have come up with another fabulous challenge, this week it's TIc Tac Toe. Now I must admit to feeling a little confused at first, I didn't have any tacs, my facial tics are not for sharing, and my toes were definitely NOT for showing on a public blog!!!

BUT! Wilbear took me aside and explained that I should read the challenge properly, not just the title, and on second perusal I discovered that the idea was to choose three in a row of the suggested techniques. What fun.
I was so excited at the prospect of playing with my journal, I rushed straight to the desk, knocking over Mr. Headly in my haste, and causing him a fatal injury!




Oops! Someone call an ambearlance!
Anyway, I chose the first line down, as Wilbear does when he begins his crosswords, this consisted of:

Paint
Distress
Hardware or metal

To start, I foraged in the bits 'n' pieces box...




I found this fabulous chipboard puzzle alphabet, which set off a creative spark.




To comply with the challenge, I selected masks, acrylic paints and distress inks, and began to create....




I dabbed various colour distress inks through several masks, onto my blank page,




building up layers. then I added splodges of acrylic paint with a foam brush, misted with water, and let them run away with themselves.




There was a stage where I wondered where on earth I was going with my page! I thought it was best to carry on and see where my creativity took me though. After all, if it doesn't work, it can be Gessoed over!! What a weird mess of mist and paint effects below, I call it art-vomit!!




I used Mod Podge to adhere some elements to the page. I love Mod Podge, as it dries completely clear, and can be dabbed on liberally.




Here's my mid-craft mess. I 'borrowed' some of Wilbear's jigsaw for my project. I hope he doesn't want to use it any time soon.




I added some journalling cut from Sizzix Alphabets, we had various bags of pre cut letters waiting to be used.




I thought the page needed more background decoration, so foraged in the stamp box. In my excitement, I leaned a little too far, and fell in! Ouch. (Please excuse the bottom shot! Podgy thought it would be funny to record my little mishap.)




After climbing out, I finished off my page by adding some background stamping, and a stamped sentiment, 'live for the moment'.

The die cut letters on the right hand side have been distressed in purple, to match some of the masked background. To comply with the metal or hardware element of the challenge, I added a key in place of a word.




While creating my page I discovered a new technique - dab kitchen roll on your distress ink pad




and press over the top of chipboard for another distressed effect.




Here I am with my finished page. The wording says




'Life is a big puzzle, the key is to live for the moment'.

After looking at my page a little more, I decided there was something not quite finished about it, so I took a trip to my local scrapbook store, Papermaze, and spent the last of the bears' pocket money on a white gel pen, to highlight my journalling.




A close up of the left hand side




And the right hand side




I'm still not sure about my page being finished, but hey, art is one big ex'bear'iment, and this is my grunge attempt!! ;). I could always gesso over it and re experiment.

Thanks once again to Smudgy Antics for coming up with such interesting inspiration for me, at this rate I'll have my journal filled before Christmas.

TTFN (time to find new jigsaw for Wilbear!)

With love from the bears.

We would like to thank.......

The bears have been nominated for an award



By the lovely AJ. Wilbear was insisting on writing an acceptance speech to rival anything you'd ever fallen asleep to at the academy awards, he even practised his heartfelt sob. Horace has been practising his autograph ever since learning of the award, Podgy is preening himself in the hope of being 'papped' when he steps outside the bear bungalow, so it's fallen to me, Pooh, to graciously accept the award, I'm a seasoned pro at the fame game, and take it all in my stride.

As soon as I read of our award, I dressed ready for my acceptance photo, it was still rather dark in the bear bungalow so I grabbed a random top and bottom and just hoped they matched. I haven't had time to look in the mirror but I'm sure I look the part.



Anyway, thank you to AJ for the nomination. So, why do we blog? Well it all started with the human who squats in our bungalow, she was an extremely active human, enjoying many exercise based activities, as well as working in her local library, and attending university. However, after becoming unwell and having to give up work, university and other outside activities, she took up crafting, and along with that blogging, as an outlet for her over-active brain. She had always enjoying writing, and began blogging her every day life, along with occasional craft experiments and baking exploits, and seemed to be enjoying her new hobbies.

But! Although the human attempted to write interesting posts, we thought we could do better, after all, a furry bear's life compared to your average human life? No contest!! So, we staged a coup, and took over the blog, forcing her out completely. She accepted defeat (un) graciously, and now looks on wistfully from her spot under the bed, where we keep her, squashed amongst the boxes of craft supplies, while we get to play, purchase products, post interesting blog articles, bake wondiferous foods in her kitchen, and generally have a high old time. Well it beats sitting around just looking cute as she used to insist we did.

Ooh, I need to nominate others for the award don't I?

Peapods because she's mad

Words and Pictures for her awesome inspiring work

Bearpuff as she hunts out lots of tutorials for us.

Hope no one minds the nominations, oh, and we love all the blogs we follow, but thought to nominate them all defeated the object a bit. :)

PS, Horace says, would anyone like a pawtograph?!!!

With love from the bears.

WOYWW - A Challenge for Wilbear

Hello there, Wilbear here with you today. The second Wednesday in November greets us today, doesn't time fly? Still, that means we have another crafty desk hop, courtesy of Julia at Stamping Ground

So, what have the bears got on the workdesk this week? Well whilst perusing craft challenge blogs, we came across a vintage challenge at Eclectic Ellapu. Being a vintage kind of bear myself, this challenge was just pawfect for me.

I decided to make cards using Stamping Inspirations for You magazine, this comes with both free stamps and free papers. You know how the bears love their freebies.




I found some fantastic vintage images which were made for this kind of challenge.


Including some rather cute bear images


I made a conventional style card


and an easel card


But for the challenge, I made the vintage card below. It's in a collage style as the images seemed to be crying out to be collaged. Everything used comes from the papers provided in the middle of the magazine. I 3d stickied the main, vintage lady image, to add draw the eye to her.


Thanks to Eclectic Ellapu for providing me with such great inspiration. I've really enjoyed my 'crafternoon'

With love from the bears.

The Bears' Monthly Bi-Monthly Crop

Hello there, Horace here today, yesterday I hosted the bears' bi- monthly crop. What a fun day it was. I decided to create a page in my personal journal. As you may know, I'm quite a sensitive, arty type of bear, and prone to bouts of self doubt, so I thought I would journal about this, with the help of song lyrics.




My first task was to find some song words that suited my thoughts on bad days, Pink, Don't Let Me Get Me, was perfect. I printed the lyrics pertaining to me onto Word (in pink of course)!

I misted my page in various pink Cosmic shimmer mists, then added some black acrylic paint, to depict my dark thoughts! I added various masking and paint effects, for a more interesting background, then printed a Google image of the singer Pink, and an image of someone looking fed up.

Next I stamped a mirror onto silver card, and drew zigzag lines across it, to illustrate Pink breaking the mirror. The lyrics here are

Every day I fight a war against the mirror
I can't take the person looking back at me
I wanna be somebody else




I often find myself staring into the mirror at my furry face, thinking I'm not as handsome as Podgy, or Wilbear, So these lyrics were written for me!
For those self doubt moments, or days, I used the following lyrics

I'm a hazard to myself
I'm my own worst enemy
Don't wanna be my friend no more




On the righthand page I added more lyrics for my badbear mood days:

So irritating
So bad when you annoy yourself
Doctor doctor won't you please prescribe me something?
A day in the life of someone else.




Next time I have those feelings of self doubt or loathing, I can look at my page, sing myself some Pink Lyrics, then go eat a large bar of chocolate and tell myself to cheer up!

With love from the bears.

Podgy's Smudgy Antics

Hello there, after missing the last challenge at Smudgy Antics, I thought I'd make an early start on the new challenge Ghouls' Night Out

What a fabulous theme. I wasn't sure what to do at first, but our friend found these flyers in the local shops, and brought them home for the bears, and my furry little brain began to whirr with ideas.



I thought I'd follow the theme literally, and make an art journal entry of ghouls getting ready for their night out. First, I cut the images from my flyers, and 'ghouled' them up a bit with my Spectrum Noir pens. I added make up to the main ghoul, Grizelda, and also drew a scar on her neck, to make her more gruesome.


I stamped and cut a mirror,which Grizelda is looking into, thinking to herself that she is beautiful.


But the mirror tells a different story, cracking as she looks into it. This effect was achieved with my Sharpie pen, and some zigzag lines paw-drawn by me.


Just to prove bears do make a mess, here I am mid-craft. What a jumble of ideas going on.


We keep a bag of ready cut words, so I sorted through to see if there was anything suitable for the ghouls' page.


On the right hand side of the page, I stamped some random images of handbags, shoes and perfume, all essential to a ghouls evening out.


Here I am holding my finished page. The story behind it is that Grizelda on the left has prettied herself up, her thought bubble shows that she thinks she is a beauty, but the mirror has cracked as she looked in it, and the mini ghoul to the bottom left is looking askance at her, she hides her own mirror to protect it from breaking in shock.


The righthand side shows two shocked ghouls to top of the picture, they are hiding to the side of the evening's venue, shocked at Grizelda's misplaced vanity. Grizelda's best friends on the far right (middle) are offering her handbags, shoes and gloves, telling her that if she just takes these, they will enhance her beauty, and she will be ready to go out.


Here's a close up of the lefthand side. I stamped a cracked effect background stamp over the page, to add to the idea that the mirror has shattered.


And a close up of the righthand side.


I had such a fun evening playing with ideas and creating this page. Thank you so much to Smudgy Antics for setting such a great challenge.

With love from the bears.

The Bears' November Challenge - Your Cubhood Favourites

Welcome to November dear friends, and to another challenge, set by your favourite blogging bears.

This month, with the weather turning colder, our thoughts turn to hibernation, and along with thoughts of hunkering down into our 15tog winter duvet, come thoughts of comfort in the form of food and books. Comfort food for bears consists of chocolate, porridge and honey, and what better for a hibernating bunch of bears than to return to some old favourites to read while winter takes hold.




When it comes to cubhood favourite books, the bears simply can't agree as to the best; Wilbear loves Alice in Wonderland, and says you just can't beat it for a comfort book. Cedric says Heidi was a well read book from his cubhood, and one he still returns to today. All of the bears love Little Women, and will take turns to read a chapter to each other every so often. Other cub fiction featuring on the bears bulging bookshelves include Charlotte Sometimes, The Wind in the Willows, The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin, The Secret Garden and oh, so many many more that it would take us the rest of the month to list them all. Some we've read more times than we have paws to count on, some we've only read a few claws worth of times, but still remember the stories well.

Do you have a cherished cubhood book that you still return to as a fully grown bear? This months challenge is to make a project based on your most cherished cubhood book, one you either remember almost word for word, or one that still graces your bookshelves to this day.

Your challenge, if you dare to accept it, is
Make any project, for example a tag, card, journal page, etc of

YOUR CUBHOOD (or childhood) FAVOURITE

We think reading,especially when you're young, is all about the following



Learning
Escapism
Discovery
Adventure

These are your inspiration words for your challenge, but as this is all about your favourite book, we think it should be your choice how you interpret it.

Choose the book that you remember best, or the one you remember reading to your own cubs. Pick one feature from your book, or one quote, or illustrate the whole story. You could even be subversive and use the title of your chosen book as a start point, but turn the project into something entirely different from the original. The most important thing is to make it personal to you.

One rule

HAVE FUN

Link and leave and comment when you are done, so we can come and admire your hard work. As usual, this is a 'just for fun' challenge, as the bears nearest and dearest often take part, and we wouldn't like to be accused of nepotism in choosing favourites. We do have a bear blog challenge button to the left though, and would love for you to use it on your blog, if you so wish.

We hope we have some entrants this month, we were so pleased that 5 of you took the time to play last month, thank you all so much, crafting is much more fun with friends.

Challenge end date will be November 30th, to allow for plenty of time ( for the bears to argue about which book to choose for the challenge!)



With love from the bears.