In Fear of Melting

Hello there dear friends. Is it hot where you are? It is here. The British summer has decided to bring us something other than rain for a change and as furry bears we have been sweltering in the heat. At first I thought it a little bit of a novelty and took full advantage of bathing opportunities





After a while though I felt my fur start to singe so made a hasty retreat to the coolest place in the house




Note the chocolate bar for sustenance!

Once I was suitably cool, I decided to carry on with my newest hobby, sewing a quilt. My good friend Bearemy cut everything to size for me as my paws were not up to all that cutting



I then set to, stitching all my 6 x 6 squares together, first in rows, then stitching each row to the next



This took me ages, but it was fun to see my project growing square by square then row by row.




For the backing I bought myself a single sheet from Asda and cut it to size.



This proved very economical as I had enough left to make bias binding for the whole quilt.


I'm planning to finish stitching the binding in the autumn as it's just too hot to have the quilt on my lap and sew at the moment. Until then I'll occupy myself with small projects. I have a Debbie Shore book which has various interesting sewing projects in, so I'll probably busy myself with one of those until the weather turns cool enough to stitch quilted goods.

Happy crafting, see you soon.


With love from the bears

WOYWW - bears are back in town

Well hello there, Horace here with you today to join in with the wondrous WOYWW If you're not sure what on earth we're on about then click on the link to be taken to the best desk nose in the world.

We've been absent for a long time, but I'm feeling up to sitting in the ( very hot) garden and crafting. As you can see, Wilbear hefted lots of stash out for me to play with....



I think I'll start by eating the toast you see to the right, a bear cannot work on an empty tum! Next I'll have a play in the large Dylusions journal, which is almost full now, and almost a year since we started it too! The little journal is a friendship collabearation between us and the cub, and if I don't melt in the heat I may do something in that too. What fun.

I have Dylusions sprays out, and Dylusions stamps, so along with the journals, it seems like a Dylusions day to me.

I'm off to visit some desks, hopefully I'll catch up with old friends along the way.

Ttfn ( time to fry now?)


With love from the bears

We're back

Well hello there, we're back. Did you miss us? We certainly missed posting. The Human Under the Bed ( known as THUTB) has not been well and we came out in sympathy with her and took to our big bear bed! We had a little break from the blog in order to regroup, rest and recuperate and although we are not yet fully recovered we've missed posting so much that we've come back to say hello and hopefully restart blogging on a regular, although less prolific than before, basis.

You'll see a few minor changes, Cedric was missing The Peak District, where he came from, so he has gone back to live amongst the Bakewell bears. Pooh Bear has decided to go back to Hundred Acre Wood as he was missing Piglet et al.

We shall try and blog once a week. We will definitely be art journalling as getting arty and messy has been very therapeutic whilst we've been recupbearating. It's amazing how sploshing a bit of paint and mists around can lift furry spirits, we may make the occasional card too, as we still have bear birthdays to send to. You may also see some of my (Horace's ) sewing projects from time to time. Podgy will of course be popping up here and there to show you his baked creations, and there may be some general bear waffle here and there too.

With that in mind, I shall start with some misty backgrounds, I hope the Dylusions sprays haven't clogged since our arty hiatus. Excuse the pyjama shot, I'm not up to getting properly dressed yet.



With love from the bears

Catching up

Well hello there dear friends. We're guilty of blog neglect of late. Lots of goings on which we won't bore you with as they're health related (zzzz) but we are hopeful we will all be sorted and sharing more furbulous fun soon. Thank you for messages asking if we were okay, how lovely to know we're thought of.

It's Horace here to catch up with you as I'm the only one who has been sporadically creating and I also pawsuaded the other bears to take some photos of my daily doings.

I have to admit, since we've been under the weather, I seem to have developed a bit of a spending habit. I just can't help myself, one minute I'm pawrusing the intetnet, next, bam, my virtual shopping basket has been checked out and become a reality. Some of my pawchases have not been of the sensible variety. Take these skates. I keep falling over when I try to skate!


I tried ringing bear spenders anonymous, but they left an answerphone message saying they were busy shopping!


I did manage to distract myself from shopping for a little while, once I'd had a teensy spend on an inspirational art book that is! I settled down with my new sponsor puppy, Herbie ( sponsored for Guide Dogs for the Blind) I sketched some weird cats, for future journal pages maybe.


Yet more spending on the Internet and I bought myself a summer outfit, it's rained ever since!


Luckily (for me, not the bears' bank balance) I pawchased a sweatshirt at the same time. Brrr.


You'll never guess what new hobbear I've taken up? Sewing!! I saw an advert for a sewing machine on offer at Hobbear craft, and bought it. I did make this snazzy bag though, not bad for a very first attempt.



Then I went sewing crazy and made this onesie from a made up pattern (I lay down on the paper and drew round myself!!)


Finally, not content to leave it at the items I already made, I decided I needed a monster pet. I found a pattern online and got busy. What do you think?


I'm already looking for my next project, maybe an envelope style cushion cover. Nothing too big as before this I've never sewn more than a loose button, and usually that falls off soon after.


We have a medical appointment next Tuesday, and hope it won't be too long after that til we're sorted and posting some crafty type doings. We try to keep our Facebear page up to date as that's very quick to update. At the moment I'm attempting 100 Happy Days on there. Posting one picture a day of something that makes me happy. If you have Facebear (or book for humans) check out our page. Search The House of Bears on there and you should find us. We also have Instagram (search house of bears or pootlepops) where we post old and new pics. We'd love to see you on either site.


With love from the bears

Mini book inspiration

Well hello again. It's Horace here to show you a mini book made using a Youtube tutorial. Do you watch Docrafts TV? There's a fabulous tutorial
for a mini book using their new paper collection. I didn't have this collection but the bears do have the Papermania Sew Lovely collection, which has two of each design in a pack so I decided to get busy and follow the instructions. 

I didn't have the same papers that Lou Collins used, but I did find this Sew Lovely Papermania collection in our patterned paper pile. Perfect for this project. I picked out two matching papers for the outside of the book, and two for the inside.

I had to borrow Wilbear's tape measure as my ruler doesn't measure inches! 

I found my own, inimitable way to smooth down the papers once I'd secured the ribbon within them!

Folding the book is, according to Lou Collins, much like making a giant paper airplane. I didn't test mine for airworthiness!

All the folds result in some lovely pockets for the book, which I stuffed with journalling cards. 

I also added a journal card to the front, and will personalise this to send for a friend's birthday.

This is probably the easiest mini book I've made. Why don't you click the link above and make your own?

Journal collaborations with the cub

Hello there friends. It's time for more pictures than words here at The House of Bears as we take a peek at some of the pages created in the journal collabearations with the cub. As you may remember, we each have a journal to create either a full page, a background or something arty in. The page can be complete, half done, just a mist on a page etc. we then swap journals and pages that are date stamped are considered to be finished and cannot be worked on by either of us. Any undated pages are free to be altered in any way, even by completely covering the original art work. It's great fun as you never know what's going to be added when the journals are swapped.

Here are some completed and half done pages in the journal so far.

This was the first page created by the cub when she took the journal home for the first time. This is date stamped.


This is part of a double page and not date stamped, a whimsy girl drawing by the cub. Horace added a butterfly to her hair and some pink texture and the words 'if only' to the opposite page. We can't wait to see if the cub has added any more to it when we swap again.


This is a work in progress page, lots of mists, an altered envelope, some stamping. We're looking forward to seeing what happens next with this.



A finished page by Horace. Inspired by Pink Floyd song lyrics.


A finished page by the cub. Simply beautiful.


Lastly for now, a work in progress, joint collabearation page.


We'll be back to show you more as this and the journal collabearation with our friend Cath progresses.

With love from the bears

WOYWW? A TV????

Hullo there. Yet another Wednesday is here already and we all know what that means, don't we? Yet another peek at the desks of craft minded peeps worldwide, courtesy of Julia at Stamping Ground. Check out the link, join in and have a nose at what everyone is up to.

So, what's on the bears' desk this week then? A TV! A TV? I hear you ask in astonishment? Yes, a TV. But why? Well, we decided it was time for a change around in the bear room, and asked Wilbear if he would mind shifting the furniture round a bit. He huffed and puffed and sighed and cried, but eventually he agreed. We sat on the bed and watched while he got busy! Everything was put wherever it fit while the furniture was heaved into its new position, and the TV ended up on the desk for a while.



What a mess was created in the moving process, but we're now making it all ship (or should that be bear) shaped and ready for more crafty creating later today.

First a little look at other deskers doings though, any excise to delay the cleaning up!

With love from the bears