More Apartment Photos!

Hi everyone!

Well, as promised here a a few new pictures of the apartment. We are so thrilled with how it's come along and can't wait to get over to Thailand to 'move in' officially!!!

Here's the view over Patong Beach from our balcony - priceless!!!


How cool is this outdoor shower area?


From the entry doorway:


Underneath car park & garden area:


Outside of building from street:

LAMB Bears!!!

Well, what a week! I have been absolutely run off my feet trying to get bears ready for the Sydney Teddy Bear Fair which was held yesterday at Sydney Olympic Park.

We had a wonderful show - not as many traders this year: and plenty of collectors and visitors milling around all day. Most artists and traders and great sales (I just about sold out which was a fantastic feeling!)

Especially for the show I designed a range of 4 bears which were inspired by the Gwen Stefani album Love, Angel, Music, Baby - hope you like them!









Keeping the music album thing going, I also designed this bloke - Melon Collie: inspired by the Smashing Pumpkins album from some years back - Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness.

Profile - Bears & Buds Online Magazine!!!!

W-O-W-!!!

What an absolute thrill for me to be featured again in another bear magazine so soon - this time in the American online magazine Bears & Buds (the lovely people who organise the annual URSA awards).

My bear Fancy has centre stage on the front cover of their March 5th birthday celebration edition - and I can't begin to tell you how exciting that is for me - it's like a dream come true! And all in such a short space of time!!!!

Hope you can log on to the website to take a peek ... http://www.bearsandbuds.com/March-2010/NikkelBearsMarch2010BearsandBuds.asp

More New Bears!!!

Now that we've recovered from nearly being washed away at the Rob Thomas concert last weekend (see previous post), I've been madly working on some new bears, but thought I'd introduce you to these 3 guys who made their debut at the Teddy Bears and Critters 'Be My Valentine' online show last weekend.

Alas, their new mums didn't find them there, but they'll be appearing on my website fairly shortly, but I thought I would like to introduce you to them first: Sunday Rose, Otis and Cozzie (the lazy one who's lying down!)







Actually, Cozzie is the largest bear I've made to date - all hand-stitched at a whopping 19" from head to toe! What a marathon that was! I'm actually working on a couple of small 8" bears for the upcoming Sydney Teddy Bear Fair in March - a very big change from such a large bear.

Hope you like them - keep an eye out for them on the website this week!

Woodstock Revisited!!!

As those of you who follow this blog will know, I am a big fan of Matchbox 20 and Rob Thomas.

Yesterday was the open-air Day on the Green concert starring Rob Thomas at Centennial Vineyards at Bowral in the southern highlands of New South Wales - a beautiful and leafy part of our state.

I had waited 7 months for this concert date to roll around, having bought our tickets back in July last year, so you can imagine how much we were looking forward to laying back under the shade of the huge gum trees on our picnic blankets, glass of wine in hand and snacking on home-cooked mini quiches, mini-pies, chicken wings and several kinds of cheese & crackers and enjoying the concert as the sun went down.

WHAT! No sun??? Umm, I think someone forgot to tell the weatherman that this concert was on yesterday - we woke up to bleak and dreary wet skies (again!) but thought to ourselves 'well this will be different' and off we headed with a group of friends to have a big wet adventure.

Boy! That's exactly what we got too! They say a picture tells a thousand words, so I don't really need to add much - these pics speak for themselves!













I'm glad to say that we had an absolute ball yesterday, rain and all. The concert went ahead despite the weather, and both Rob Thomas and Vanessa Amorossi were fantastic.

A New Bear

Well, these hands haven't idle the last few weeks!

I've been keeping very busy with a bunch of shows coming up, but have squeezed in a new bear ... introducing Monte Carlo ... a soft and cuddly bundle of teddy love in a fantastic new tri-coloured long pile mohair I just bought especially for this bear.



Hope you like his trapunto paws ... they were a new challenge for me, as I hadn't done trapunto on mohair pads before (only on ultrasuede previously) and it was a different style of toe, but I really enjoyed making them, and will probably make a few more bears with paddy paws just like this. I think I like them so much as they remind me of the fur between our late Monty's toes (aaahh, beautiful memories ...)

Profile - Australian Bear Creations Magazine!!!!

W-O-W !!!! I'm thrilled to bits - my copy of Australian Bear Creations (Vol 15-6) arrived today and there I am .... IN PRINT!!!



To have a profile published has been a dream of mine in my very short bear-making career - a very big THANKYOU to the Editor of the magazine Sandra Wigzell who absolutely made my day when she invited me to send in my profile for this edition. What a fantastic opportunity for promoting Nikkel Bears.



I'm on cloud nine at the moment ... feeling like I've won the lottery!