Dragonsdream TIO - nightmare

Hello there, Wilbear here with you to take the challenge from Dragonsdream TIO




The theme this week was Nightmare, and the ingredients were, a murder of crows, a blue moon, and a chill wind. Well, being a fan of Edgar Allan poe's gothic tales, and dark artwork, this really appealed to me. Being afeared of birds really helped, as to bears they really are a nightmare, and of course crows are the scariest of all. This is what I produced.




murder of crows: birds in flight, top right-hand corner of tag, stamped repeatedly
Blue moon: nestabilities circle inked and distressed
Chill wind, tree branches and large crow's feathers blowing in the breeze
To make the moon, I used the smallest of our Spellbinders Nestabilities circle dies, which I cut with the trusty Cuttlebug.




I used blue and brown distress inks




First I inked the moon in a straw colour




Then re inked it in blue, as I remembered the ingredient was a blue moon!




I then inked my tag in the blue distress inks, broken china for the inner and sapphire for the outer




For my murder of crows, I used this miniature stamp of birds in flight repeatedly over the top right side of the tag, yikes, scary stuff.




I printed a sentiment and inked it. my sentiment was taken from one of Ted Hughes's series of works entitled Crow. It reads 'A horror beyond redemption'. I added the word 'crow' as it appears in many of these works.




I then distressed the sentiments with our natty little Tim Holtz distressing tool. I think the name is a misnomer though as it didn't distress me at all,




I glued my sentiment, and other ingredients, and placed them onto my tag




To produce this.




A close up of my moon and the murder of crows,




And a close up of the scary big crow next to a dark tree. I added 3d sticky pads to the crow, to make him really stand out, and depict how truly scary he is to us. The branches of the tree are bent to represent the chill wind, as are the crow's feathers.




I really enjoyed this challenge, thank you Dragonsdream for the inspiration.
I think I'll just sit and admire my tag a while. Until another bear needs to sit at the desk and craft.




Oh, before you go, would you like to cast your vote on our poll over on the side bar. Who is your favourite blogging bear? Me? ;)

With love from the bears ��

WOYWW- another secret

Hello there from the bears on yet another WOYWW. If you haven't discovered Julia's blog yet then Press your furry paw here to take a peek at craft desks from all over the world.
This week the bears are continuing the secret theme from last week,






We've been working on a different project this week, for a good friend of ours, Mrs Sweetie. Some years ago now a group of us decided to start bear journals, with the idea that one lucky bear per household would embark on a journey across the UK, having adventures on the way. In due course, Henry, from Mrs. Sweetie's abode came to join us for his penultimate adventure before heading home.
We really want Henry's journal entry to remain a secret so that Mrs. Sweetie is assured of a surprise when he eventually arrives home, and we know she sometimes visits the bears's blog, so the photo above shows a general mess on our desk, with Henry's journal in the middle. The surrounding stash is slowly transforming into Henry's memoirs of his time here.
We'll indulge your curiosity, with a close up, but only of the corner rounder we used on the journal! What teases we are!






Oh okay, we'll be nice and show you the misted journal pages, just after we'd sprayed them, and prior to further decoration.






Here we are, indulging in our second favourite pass time, watching paint dry.






We're off to visit some desks all over the world.
TTFN
With love from the bears ��


With love from the bears 🐻

When life gives you lemons....

.....Make lemon curd!




Hello there, Podgy here with my good friend and guest blog helper, Spider-bear ( that's not his real name - he changes it depending on what he wears). Here we are sharing a cup of coffee whilst discussing what we could make with our lemons.




You'll be pleased to see I have some clothes on today (or not, depending on your preference!!)

Anyway, today I have a lovely lemon curd recipe for you, Spider-bear said he would be my sous-chef for the day.

To start I had a little fun by juggling the lemons, wheeee.




First I made sure I read the recipe thoroughly




Spider-bear weighed out 325g golden caster sugar




He then zested 4 lemons, but he complained because the grater chafed his poor paw!




I felt sorry for him and cut..




...then juiced the lemons myself. So much for having a sous chef!




To cheer poor Spider-bear up I took a funny photo of his snazzy slipper




I then weighed 125g unsalted butter,and cut it into small pieces.




Spider-bear recovered enough to crack 4 eggs into a bowl and lightly beat them.




I sterilised two jars by swishing them out in boiling water, then heating them in the oven for 20 minutes




NB (note to bears) if you are handling hot items, it is essential that you wear paw protectors




Spider-bear and I wore our special monkey oven mitts




Once all the ingredients wereweighed, zested, etc, blah blah, I placed them all in a bowl, over a pan of simmering water, and stir, stir, stired.




Until the mixture came together to coat the back of the spoon




Like so.




I then poured the curd into the pre-sterilised jars, and topped with a circle of waxed paper



Voila




I made sure the lids were tightly screwed on and left to cool.




Your lemon curd should be kept in the fridge, it should keep for up to two weeks, but once opened consume within 3 days (it won't last that long in the bear bungalow!!)

With love from the bears ��

GOLD!!!!!!

Oh my goodness, what a night for the Great Beartain team in the 2012 bearlimpics. Have you been watching? If not you've missed a real edge-of-your-seat experience.

Fear not though, we have pictures of our darling of the games - PODGY, who won gold

Here he is watching the flag being raised in his honour after receiving his medal from Sebearstian Coe




God save our gracious bear!!!

The crowds were cheering and flag waving for all they were worth.



Here is the medal ceremony, Podgy won Gold for his Martial arts, Horace won a gingerbread man for having the best pants, and Pooh won Milky Stars for best orange tan!!!



Podgy had his own interview with Gary Linekbear on the BearBC channel.



What a memorable night, we can't wait to welcome home our wonderful winners. Especially GolddMedalBear.


With love from the bears 🐻

Dragonsdream tio - Alice and the Rabbit situation

Hello there from the gorgeous one




Yes it's the oh so cute Podgy here today to show you my tag for the current Dragonsdream tag challenge, this fortnightly challenge is one of the bears' favourites, the recipes are always so interesting, and they really get our paws itching to craft. The blog can be found Press paw here

The recipe for the current challenge is Alice and the Rabbit situation. Alice in Wonderland is another cubhood favourite of ours so we were really excited to start. First we had a little fight over who would actually get to create the tag, then the other bears were worn out arguing and agreed to sleep on it and draw straws when they woke up, so I sneaked off to craft this:




With the ingredients for the challenge, Alice - Rabbit - Situation, I decided to take as my central theme Alice caught in the confusing situation of growing and shrinking with every sip of drink or bite of cake she has. My tag shows Alice in a growth spurt after taking a sip from the 'drink me' bottle. I used the tape measures to depict her gargantuan frame.

I found both the tape measures and the phrase 'lengthen or shorten' in a stamping magazine dedicated to haberdashery. I thought they fitted my theme really well. The rabbit is cut from a book of images we have, he's incredibly small to really enhance just how large Alice has become. He's reading the Alice in Wonderland book, trying to find out what will happen next, possibly? Alice herself is our lovely Blade Rubber stamp. The circle button is to show confusion as is the circle background.

I started as usual by distressing my blank tag in blue inks, I then misted over it with glimmer mists and left it to dry. When I came back to the tag I thought it looked a little flat and boring, so ran it through the Cuttlebug, with the circles embossing folder to add interest, and the element of confusion.


I think Alice must have felt she was going round in circles what with alternately shrinking and growing.


These are my images ready to go on the tag



I decided to craft in the lounge, so as not to wake the other bears (I didn't want them to find me mid- craft, I wanted to present them with a fur acompli, or something like that!!)




Our good friend Florence had lent her Alice Octopede stamps to us, so I stamped and cut the 'drink me' bottle and inked it in Broken China distress ink.



Once I'd decided on the placement of my elements I started glueing and sticking.



I just had to pose with my finished result. Hopefully the other bears won't read this post, I told them the bearies came and made the tag!!



With love from the bears 🐻

WOYWW - a Secret

Hello there, goodness, doesn't time fly, it's Wednesday again and time for another peek at the desks of crafters all over the world. Why don't you pop on over to Julia's blog to check it out and click on some crafty desk links.

So, what's on the bears' desk this week? Sh, it's a secret! We can reveal though, that this craft mess is creating our very own piece for our Secret Garden themed challenge. Can you spot any clues as to what will be on our artwork?




Ooh, what's this? A brick effect embossing folder, hmm, interesting.


The finished piece will be for our art journal, here it is. We still need to add a title, but haven't decided what yet. This is a Pink Pig 8x8 journal. We'd wanted to start an art journal for a while, but weren't sure which sort of book would be best, until a friend suggested the pigs of pinkness.


Some distress inks may feature on our challenge piece



dabbed onto the page with these.


All will be revealed on challenge close day, which is 12th August. We'd love it if you'd join in with our challenge, details can be found Here

We're off to look at some crafty desks now, ttfn.


With love from the bears 🐻