The Noses have It!

I thought I'd do something a little bit different to my usual posts here on my blog, and talk to you about noses.

As you've no doubt noticed, I've been needle felting noses on my latest bears - doing this is a complete change for me: in the beginning I embroidered all of my noses, trying to perfect the ultimate system for keeping all of the threads uniform and neat. Then I tried baked clay noses for a while - and while both of these mediums were lots of fun, I wanted to learn more ....

.... and so I found needle felting!

I really love the realistic style of bears produced by Joanne Livingstone of Desertmountain Bears and Heidi Hollis of Citico Ridge Bears, however, I still wanted to keep my own contemporary style bear but add nuances of realism here and there.

So I studied all types of noses - here's just a few!

Once I started studying noses in the animal world, I couldn't believe how very different they all are - as you can see from these photos!

Here's a sample of my latest bears - all with needle felted noses - which I'm very proud of!

I hope you like the direction I'm taking with my latest bear cubs ... I'm sure there's plenty more for me to learn, but for the moment, I've learned a few new things, and am having lots of fun doing it!

Until next time,

Hugs,
Marg xoxo

URSA Awards Finalist!!!!

Wow!!!! My bear JIA LI announced as a 2013 URSA Finalist!

I can't begin to tell you how happy I am: I've just heard the news that my beautiful Chinese princess bear Jia Li has reached the final round of the 2013 URSA Awards!

At the moment there are 3 finalists in each Category so each of us do not know yet whether or not we've won 1st, 2nd or 3rd place, and the organisers have already said that there's not many points between some of the competitors! How close is that!!! There were some really fantastic pieces entered this year - I'm not surprised that the voting was close!

Thank you to all of you for taking the time to vote for JIA LI - you guys are just the best!

The final round of voting is open from August 12 to September 9 - I would love it if you would find the time to place your final vote for Jia Li in the Diva's Category - just follow this link to take you to the voting page on the Bears & Buds website.

All of these final round votes add on to the votes already placed for each entry - a few votes could be the difference!!!

Good luck to all of the other finalists - it's certainly been a nail-biting finish this year. The overall winners will be announced in the Bears & Buds Online Magazine on October 1st.

As you can imagine, I already have my fingers and toes xxx'd!

Hugs,
Marg xx

New Website News and Other Stuff!

I'm so excited to have launched my brand-new website - I do hope you can find time to pop over and have a browse ... and I'd love to get your feedback - just click here for the link.

I'm so grateful to the help given to me by Helen Gleeson from Bear Cub Designs and Easy ArtSpace - the site was so very simple to set up and I've been having loads of fun adding new things ... a bit here and a bit there ... it all takes time, doesn't it?

For the first time EVER, I also posted a brand new bear on my website for sale, and offered him only to my lovely, loyal mailing list members and he was adopted pretty much straight away! I couldn't believe it ... it was a lovely surprise!

Just the tonic to boost an aching heart from losing my mum to a short illness the same week - I'm sure my success is due to her watching over me - here's a picture of my mum on her wedding day ... isn't she beautiful? I miss you mum xoxo

2013 URSA Awards - Voting is Open!

Hey, everyone! How quickly does 12 months pass by? Can you believe it's 12 months already since last year's URSA Awards!!!

Hope you can drop by to check out all the wonderful beary eye candy in this year's contest - just follow this link which will take you straight to the voting pages on the Bears & Buds online magazine website.

I have two bears nominated for this year's awards - firstly my Chinese princess bear 'Jia Li' in Category 7 (Diva's). You'll recall earlier this year that this girl was a commision bear made exclusively for a Cambodian bride-to-be - a gift from her fiance. Very romantic, and loads and loads of costume detailing.

My second bear, or rather - panda: is 'Jasper' my Christmas panda in Category 12 (Pandas) (no surprise there ha! ha!) I'm so thrilled that Jasper has already won a prestigious TOBY Industry Choice Awards, and is currently also nominated for a TOBY People's Choice Awards which will be announced in October this year.

Voting is open until 31st July - and what happens after that? Well, the 3 entries from each category with the highest amount of votes goes through to the second round voting. In the second round, only 1 entry can be chosen for the ultimate prize - the URSA Major award ... very prestigious, and I'm so honoured to be amongst some wonderful and very talented bear artists, both from home (Australia) and abroad.

Good luck to everyone - it's going to be very hard to choose!!!

Whirlwind of Bear Shows ... an update!

Gosh! I can't believe it's been so long since this blog was updated! So much has happened in my world since the Sydney Teddy Bear Fair, I'm not sure exactly where to start, so here goes!

First news I simply must tell you (and which you probably already know about LOL!!!) is my precious little panda Jasper won a 2013 TOBY Industry Award - I can't tell you how exciting that was for me and I've now received his beautiful sparkling crystal trophy the TOBY awards are renowned for! His mum lives on the other side of the world from me, and she's just as thrilled as I am with the award win!

So, now it's all about voting for the 2013 TOBY People's Choice awards (all of the Industry Choice winners are finalists) - and here's where you come in! To cast your vote just click here which will take you to the Teddy Bear & Friends site and then just follow the links. Voting closes 1st July 2013, so there's only now just over a week left to place your vote!

My bears and I have also been travelling the length of Australia - firstly in May to attend the Melbourne Teddy Bear Fair and more recently this past weekend to Brisbane's Winter Wonderland Doll & Bear Fair. I've met so many lovely new collectors and people who have shown interest in my bears, and also had wonderful chats with my bear artist friends from around the country (and from overseas!) - Australia is such a big country, we don't get to see each other in person very often and travelling can be quite costly!

I thought I'd share some of my photos from both shows with you - enjoy!

These were taken around Melbourne and at the Melbourne Teddy Bear Fair:

and here's some from the Winter Wonderland Doll & Bear Show in Brisbane:

Sydney Teddy Bear Fair 2013

Hi everyone!

Well, I've just got back home from a 3 hour drive from Sydney to attend this year's Sydney Teddy Bear Fair - what a day! Many good bear artist friends to catch up with throughout the day, plus a few lovely bear artists I hadn't met before today.

Although there weren't hordes of people waiting to stream through the doors when they opened at 10am, it was a lovely crowd of serious collectors who attended the show. Quite a few of my bears found new home - the first one was adopted pretty much as soon as the doors opened, which was a lovely surprise!!!

There weren't many quiet periods throughout the day, and the day was over before we all knew it! I managed to get around to some of the tables to take these happy snaps - I'm sure you know most of these artists!

Here's my table.


Fiona Selwyn - Selwyn Bears

Lisa Dopking - Megelles


Merilyn Pursell - Bearwildered Bears

Lorraine Almond - Almond Bears


Susan Leigh - Bearleigh Bears

Karen Alderson

Valma - Teddy's Bits (with some gorgeous hand-dyed mohair - just look at those colours!)

Coral Gabriel - Gabriel Bears


I hope you enjoyed a little peek into the Sydney show today: looking forward to the next one already!!!!