Just Like a Pill

Aloha dear friends, it's Pooh here today to show you my entry for a fab new challenge we found over at Musically Challenged. What a great concept eh? Draw inspawration from their chosen music video. Well this is just our thing.

After watching the video, and having a little bop along, I began creating my page. I noted that the video used a lot of black, and that, along with the name of the artist -Pink- formed the basis of my inspiration. I also wanted to use texture, as the video strikes me as really in your face, and this was a good way to interpret that into a page.

I started with some texture paste, which I scraped through our brick mask.

Once this was dry, I selected some paint from our drawer of plenty

The pink I chose was rather more vibrant than I had thought before applying

No worries though, as once I'd blobbed a little onto the page and watered it down, plus taking off some excess paint with the trusty kitchen roll,

a more rustic look began to develop, ah, much better.

Now I needed some black, but all i could find was a cheapo tube of runny gloop purchased for using on the Gelli plate. Hmm, ooh, my furry brain had an idea - add some texture paste to thicken it and add oomph.

Along with another stencil, which I decided looked like a popped pill packet, I added the black texturised paint.

Then I went a little crazy, and scraped the excess texture in a haphazard fashion over my pink bricks,and around the edges of the pages- after all, the song lyrics depict a haphazard life to me, so this page could not be created in a uniform and neat fashion.

I printed out the song lyrics that jumped out at me

And began adhering everything, utilising an old pill packet and the information sheet enclosed with a prescription to further illustrate my theme. Ooh, I also used a magazine cut out of a woman looking suitably alone and in need of help

I left everything to dry, and lay down on the bed for a much needed snooze......zzzzzz

Ugh? Sorry, my page, here it is.

And without my snout...

Close up left hand side

and the right hand side

I wish you could reach your paw through and feel all the texture.

I loved this challenge, why don't you have a go at it? Also, if you do like challenges, why not take a look at the bears very own literary based challenge, details for this month are right

here.



With love from the bears

U is for Uniform

Hello there, it's Horace here with you today to show you my page which I created for the Alpha Challenge over at The Craft Barn. The chosen letter this fortnight is U.
At first we thought we only had one letter with which to create our page, due to using a miniature French/English dictionary, along with our inadvertent theme of using only words that translate the same in both languages, so after a short discussion with Podgy,




we agreed I should take a turn at the desk. I decided that my word, Uniform, called for some camouflage type splats, this was great fun, until I looked at the wall and realised I had also camouflaged that, cue some desperate rubbing at the wall before Wilbear noticed!!!




Once I'd cleaned the wall, and the desk, I stopped to inspect my page....ooh splatty!




I found an old Jolees boutique army uniform sticker, and along with some Dylusions stamps and poetic license, I created this




Can you see my army frog? Well of course you can't he's camouflaged!!




Note the manipulation of the army uniform arm to enable Sergeant Frogman to point to the word and definition, which, by some miracle I managed to leave relatively unsplattered.




This was such a lot of fun to create, oh, if you like challenges, why not take a look at ours, which is literary based. You don't have to read the chosen book, as we provide quotes for inspiration. Take a look at ourJune challenge if you like. We'd love for you to join in.
With love from the bears

B is for.....

.....Well, Bee of course!! Hullo there dear friends, it's Horace here with a lack of photos for you. Our camera has been having a bit of a hissy fit of late and despite snapping away whilst creating various projects, the camera decided to delete my hard work. Hence only the end result is shown, thanks to my trusty iphone's camera facility.

This is my entry for two challenges; the B is for.. challenge over at Eclectic Ellapu, and the use texture over at Smudgy Antics. As soon as I saw the challenge details my furry little brain went into overdrive as to how to combine the two with an idea that had been baking away for a while.
I had some honeycomb style patterned paper, which made me think of bees, then I happened to notice an image of a bee supplied by The Graphics Fairy. Ooh, along with these and the remit to use texture for the Smudgy challenge, I began creating, and came up with this little piece

The Eclectic challenge calls for 3 things beginning with B, so we have my large Bee image, a teensy butterfly from my Martha Stewart double punch, and the colour blue, both in the patterned paper, and on the blue hexagon shapes, which were made using puff paste - very textural as it puffs right up as you dry it - coloured blue and applied through a mask. I also used Grunge Paste coloured with yellow paint and applied this through a mask to create yet more texture to comply with the Smudgy challenge.

Look how busy the bee has been, producing all of this honey, mmm

I also tried out our new stamps as the Smudgy challenge calls for a stamped image to be used on your project. The flower and leaves are Paperartsy Eclectica stamps which we bought at the fabulous Artist trading Post shop, wow, what very friendly and informative people they are, we wanted to buy the whole shop! I curled the edges of the stamped flower to make it really stand out, ooh even more texture!

I hope you like my little offering, I enjoyed making it.

Oh, if you like challenges, why not join in with the bears' monthly just for fun, literary based challenge, you don't even have to have read the books to join in, as we provide lots of
Challenge quotes for inspawration.

With love from the bears

WOYWW, a panda scrapping a panda

Hola fellow bloggers, it's the royal Podgeness here with you today from The House of Bears for WOYWW. Haven't the furriest what I'm on about? Look herefor details.

On the bears' desk this week you can see the French/English dictionary that we use for the Alpha Challenge over at the Craft Barn. (ohh, cue shameless plug to tell you your very own Podgy made the wall of fame for the Ketchup page entered for the K fortnight. )

Anyhoo, other than that the desk is relatively empty, why? Well I'm scrapping, a panda to be precise, a very distant relative of mine in fact! This is a redo of a page we made for a challenge, but we rushed it and never really liked what we pawduced. Podgy to the rescue though. I had this page almost done and just sitting in a 12 x 12 baggie for ages, so I thought it was time to put it all together for your delectation!

I did a bit of spritzing, a bit of cutting, a bit of Cricutting, and voila, one panda LO redone.

Have a bit of a close up, why don't you?

Right, no time to sit here admiring
myself the LO, there's desk snooping to be done! TTFN

Ooh, if you like challenges, don't forget the bears just for fun, literary based challenge, this month is quotes again, as they were so popular last month. Details can be found by pressing your furry paw right here

With love from the bears

F is for

Hello there, Podgy here with you today to show you our entry for the alpha challenge over at The Craft Barn. This fortnight calls for the letter F, but with a twist; your chosen letter must be between FE and FR.
I had a scoot through our French/English dictionary for words that translate to the same in both languages, to carry on with our inadvertently self set theme. I decided on fiction, as the bears really love to read.
I asked Horace to mist my pages while he was misting his June challenge page, this saves wasting the excess mists, we also managed to create another journal background from the mop ups too!




I utilised a tag we had in our 'half made but don't know what to do with' tag box, adding the chosen word, and the dictionary definition ripped from the English -French pages, with a humungous arrow pointing down to ensure the definition could be clearly seen.




I also added an Alice stamp that we borrowed from the cub. I coloured her in rather unusual colours, to reiterate the fiction theme.




To the right hand side I added some words that I thought depicted the fiction theme, ending with, appropriately, the end! I also circled the original word just for extra oomph, whatever oomph may be!




What fun this challenge is. We can't wait to see what letter is chosen next.

If you like challenges too, do take a look at our June Challenge, as usual it's literary based but you don't have to have read the book to join in, we have lots of quotes to tempt you.
With love from the bears

WOYWW - we moved again

Hello there fellow WOYWWers, here we are again with yet another Wednesday arrived. oh,if you don't have a clue what I'm blethering on about, look here for details, join in if you can, it's fun, and addictive.

Talking of fun, wasn't it great joining in with the anniversary celebrations last week? We forgot to take a photo of our ATCs that we sent for the swap, tsk! But, Horace had his picture taken with the ATCS we received from Gibby Frogget, how fab are these? Thank you so much, we love them.



Anyway, the desk. It's back in the bears' bedroom! Wilbear was fed up with the constant mess in the kitchen whilst he was eating his crackers and cheese, so insisted we moved again! So, here we are. We're in the corner, right by the bed, which is good - as if we tire from our creativeness we can take a quick nap!

Wilbear was quite accommodating though, he moved our little chest of drawers, put up a shelf for us, and even bought us a handy clip on light, which can be man (bear?) nipulated to shine light wherever we need it on the desk. Moving is not so bad after all!

Look closely and you can see Horace's June challenge pages waiting to be put in the journal, some Grunge paste to exbeariment with, and a mop up background waiting to be further embellished. What fun.

We're off for a desk hop, come and join us.

BUT, before we go, have you seen this month's challenge here at The House of Bears? As usual we have a just for fun, literary based challenge, and due to feedback, we are using quotes, take a peek here to find out more, we'd love you to join in.

Breaking news, we received another gorgeous ATC from Masiemoonshine in this afternoon's post. Pooh took a shine to it



Thank you MM, we love it.


With love from the bears

June Challenge, more quotes

Hello there lovely bloggers, and welcome to a new challenge from the bears. The theme of quotes seemed to be very well received, with some friends having more than one entry, which is fantastic, thank you beary much to all who entered.

Feedback from friends suggest quotes are more popular than themes, so we decided to use quotes again, but this time from Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. We do love our 19th century novels, and there are some wonderful quotes to be found in them, which can be taken entirely out of context in the name of art. Just see the wonderful interpretations of last month's Little Women quotes!

This month we would like you to make a piece of art, this can be an ATC, art journal page, tag, altered book, an off the page art work, anything that you want.

Use one of the following quotes in any way you see fit; interpret them literally according to the book or subvert them to fit your art. We love off the wall as much as we like literal translations.

'Everything in life seems unreal'

“I often think it would be such luxury to go mad, and not have to worry about anything. Others would have to worry for me, about me.”

“Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing.”

“You have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face.”

“It is not violence that best overcomes hate -- nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”

"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs."

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will".

'It is time someone undertook to rehumanise you"

“she is in a world of private dreams , not here with us !”

" I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed"

Alternatively, if none of these quotes suit you, you can use any quote you choose, as long as it can be found within the pages of the chosen book.

One little rule, HAVE FUN. This is a just for fun challenge, we don't want to judge a best etc, as we think all the artwork you enter is FAB, and you are all winners in our eyes, we just love the fact that you take time to enter and play along with us.

If you can, do visit the other entrants blogs, it's always interesting to see all the different interpretations on the theme.

This month we're trying something a little different, making one art piece to show you to start the challenge off, and another at the end of the month as usual. We're hoping it will inspire some extra bloggers to join us.

Over to Horace:

I decided to decorate some pages in the art journal, and chose the quote
“I often think it would be such luxury to go mad, and not have to worry about anything. Others would have to worry for me, about me.”

I hadn't used the Dylusions sprays for a while, so I dusted them off

and began misting.

Ooh, what lovely colours.

I used the second bears' art journal to mop up the excess mists.

After applying Dyan's ghosting technique and spraying water through a Dylusions stencil, I dried the page and added extra Dylusions, also through the mask.

Next I needed a mad image, which I achieved by mixing a Dylusions frog head and curly hair with a cute girly stamp. Hmmm, yes, that's definitely mad.

After colouring my image and adding other mad couch people images, I produced this

Here's a left hand close up.

and a right hand close up.

I hope you like my little offering, we'd love to see what you all make.

Oh, we'll keep the competition open until the end of June. Happy creating.

With love from the bears