A Beautiful Christmas Day 2011

Yesterday was a really wonderful day! We spent time with my husbands family in the afternoon and the morning and evening were our own to share.

I wanted to share with you some of the highlights of the day as far as gifts go and then I will be back to share more as today my Mum, Step dad, uncle and friend are arriving for yet another dinner!

This is our pug The Butcher, I just love this time of the year as we lay all our animal beds under the tree among the presents and they love to sleep there. They look like little angels all nestled under the magic of Christmas!

This year my tree was all done in mercury glass vintage ornaments! I was lucky enough to have inherited these from my MIL this year and of course now wish to begin a collection of these fabulous ornaments! So this is only the beginning!

This year I requested handmade gifts... if you have ever been a part of this you will know that this is not an easy request! I made most of my gifts for my family and will post images of those gifts soon but this was what they made for us... MATCHING OUTFITS for us and our babies! Hahahha ... so fabulous.

This is my J with The Butcher and they both have a new black scarf! And J has a hat to match too!

Jonesy and I got matching leg warmers! Hahahaha We love them!

That is sooooo cute!

Then MIL who insists how untalented she is on a continual basis, created this matching set for Jonesy and I! WOW! He got a full jacket with fur and I got the matching hood and mittens! Oh my goodness, we are just the image of fashion! I think he is simply adorable in this outfit and simply cannot wait to take him out for a walk!

Jonesy is my IG and so NEEDS coats at this time of the year especially! Now all we need is a sleigh! 

Be back soon with more images of our Christmas! 

Love and Kisses from us to you

Happy Boxing Day! Time to go prepare the pineapple squares, roasted potatoes and Yorkshire puddin'!

Merry Christmas to all...

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas or if you and your family celebrate another Holiday, Happy _________________ (You fill in the blank)!

Thank You for another wonderful year with the Seraphim Bears!

May you and your families enjoy a safe and joyful holiday season!

VIEW YOUR CARD FROM SERAPHIM BEARS BY CLICKING HERE

Big Bear Hugs
Michele Seraphim and the Seraphim Bears

Teddy Bear Affair Calendars available now!

Hello Everyone:

I have 7 Teddy Bear Affair calendars left for 2012. They are $10 Canadian each and all of that money will go directly to the Children's Aid Foundation! I will not make a penny on this... it's all for the children.

I was able to sell 8 today in our wine store and I have 7 left. I thought I would offer them to you, my collectors and bear friends. There will be a small shipping charge but I will get the best rate possible. The calendar is 8.5" x 11" per page and has nice size boxes for each day so you can write your events in. The Calendar is sponsored by Royal Bank of Canada and beside each picture of the monthly bear there is a thank you message letting you know how your money has helped and will continue to help!

If you would like to see the bears that will be in the calendar visit this link and you will see all the bears that were created this year to raise money for this foundation! Seraphim Bears Anne Shirley bear is on the month of September and there are 11 other fabulous bears created by artists: Sue Burgan, Lydia Massarelli, Sharon Edwards, Dianne Blencoe, Lesley Mallett, Shane Elliot and Steven Clark, Betty Dunford, Vesna Sheffer, Andrea Marcucci, Gail Hancock, Susan Conacher. The calendar is beautifully made and the theme for this years calendar is Canada!

Children's Aid Foundation 2012 Bears!

If you are interested please contact me via email and I will send you an invoice for the calendar so you can pay securely with Paypal or you can simply send me a cheque written out to "Children's Aid Foundation".

The calendars only arrived today and I don't want the children to miss out and as Christmas is almost upon us... I must offer them in as many places as possible and quickly! Thank you for your support of this fabulous charity!

Have a very Merry Christmas

Christmas at Montrose Inn

Today we enjoyed an afternoon tea at our local Montrose Inn

I thought you might enjoy seeing this lovely manor! We were very fortunate today and were the only guests so we had the tea room and the rest of the manor to ourselves... what a very special treat that was!

The woman who runs and owns the house, Diane, just so happens to LOVE bears and this is one of the highlights of my visits! She has received several ... actually ALL as gifts from her cherished guests! They line the staircase and can be found here and there throughout the home!

Hoping your holiday preparations are going well and that you are able to take a little time for yourself to sit back and enjoy the magic of Christmas!

Montorse Inn ~ Belleville Ontario Canada

A beautiful welcome...

Diane and the bears...

The bears of the stairs... heeeheee thats a rhym

The receiving room...

R and L enjoying a cup of hot cider...

Me taking a cider break to get you some wonderful shots of the Christmas experience...

L and R sitting at the dining table awaiting the glorious tea...

A bear while we wait...

More of the tea room...

Diane explains each sandwich... Yummy!

Delicious! And so beautifully presented too...

More Montrose bears...

I must apologize... right here there should be a photo of fresh baked lemon scones with jam and clotted cream... but there simply was no time to take a photo! No sooner were they placed on the table and all three of us were licking our lips with only crumbs left on our plates before I remembered to pick up the camera... they were melt in your mouth fabulous!

Then came the sweets.... oh my!

The tea room tree...

Tea room mantle...

Receiving room mantle...

Library mantle...

Receiving room tree...

Tree on the stairs...

Another Montrose bear...

Beautiful glasses to dress the table...

Crystal lights to guide the way...

The Honeymoon suite bed... WOW!

And just one of the hundreds of lovely tea sets... this one is a family heirloom!

Thank you L for an absolutely wonderful afternoon and I hope you all enjoyed your tour of the Montrose Inn

Click above to see even more about this stunning inn.

Teddy Bear Toss

I just have to share this with you for those of you who may never have seen this it is quite and event and it is done all over the place! We even do one here in our little town!

All the bears are donated to children in need!

I grew up in Calgary Alberta and as you can see... they both love their hockey and their bears!



Just look at how many bears are on that ice!

Here are some other shots of this event in different cities!



This last one is my favourite ... just listen to the excitement in the commentators voices! Awesome! And if you stick it out and watch the entire thing you will hear just HOW awesome it really is!

Fabulous weekend

Well hello everyone

Seraphim Bears would like to thank all my collectors who visited me this weekend at the Teddy Bears On Vacation show! It was great too see you all again! Many bears were adopted out in both this show and the online show making it a grand total adopted of SEVEN bears! Some are have gone home to new places, some are meeting other Seraphim Bears when they arrive home and all were happy to be wrapped in their receiving blankets and placed into their new Mum's arms... I did not have any Daddy buyers this time around. Then there are those bears that had to travel afar... they are carefully wrapped in their blankets and packaged for a long journey out of Canada. My bears are seeing lands that I have yet to see myself and I am always so excited to think of their adventures! Those bears have not yet arrived at their new homes but will soon be there to be greeted by loving arms!

All in all it was a very busy last month what with our move etc and we are of course still trying to unpack! Unfortunately also the buyer for our old home did not get their financing so we had another offer that was waiting in the wings but now we must begin all over again with inspections etc...

But lets continue on a positive note: Today I managed to unpack some more boxes and it was a bit slow today at work so I got some re-designing done of my mini bears. A new body to match the new line of Melancholy bears and some new legs and arms too! I am anxious to get one cut out and tested but I think this will be a great design! I had several requests for my miniatures at this past show and thought I better get to my reworking of my pattern so I would have those request filled for the next show!

I changed the design of my table this past show also... I like a wobble head on my bears and I find having them at table level or only slightly higher is a bit of a back ache for my collectors to try to see their sweet faces so I purchased some nice tower shelves and this seemed to work magnificently! We also won 2nd place for best costume and table combo ~ so thank you for all of you who voted for us!

Setting up time...

New table set up

My lovely neighbour Laurie Brady with friend Woo Bears

 and the fabulous table set up by Ingrid Norgaard Schmid

Be back really soon with more from Seraphim Bears Studio... and we actually have a real studio now~

Three bears are now available for adoption; Cherio on eBay, Nitty Whiskers on Bear Pile and Amelia on Bear Pile!

Teddy Bear Affair

Some of you might remember me making a bear for the Teddy Bear Affair some time ago... you all took the time to guess who she was... Anne of Green Gables. Well the affair was November 5th and though I have not heard back as yet as to how the event went I can only imagine that great things were achieved for the Children's Aid Foundation.

I wanted to share with you a link  Teddy Bear Affair 2011 so you could see for yourselves All of the bears that were created for the show under the theme: Canada. There are 12 altogether and they were photographed to create a 2012 calendar also! The bears are all simply amazing and it was such an honour to be a part of this event!

"This year’s Teddy Bear Affair raised $1.5 million, due to the generosity of 1,100 guests and our sponsors. This money will go towards improving the quality of life of thousands of vulnerable Canadian youth."

Have a wonderful and creative day and don't forget to visit the TWO shows coming up this coming weekend: Teddies Worldwide Christmas Treasures show online and The Toronto Teddy Bears on Vacation!

Teddies Worldwide online bear show preview

Hello Everyone!

As you all know, Seraphim Bears Studio and all of us in it are in the midst of a big move to a new location! Our new home is lovely bit we are not moved in yet... although we have possession of the house now and we have been sleeping on the floor for four days... but broke down and moved the bed ourselves a night ago! Tomorrow is the big moving day! But needless to say... I have two bears shows coming up and the shows will not wait...

So, with only a few days to go... the PREVIEW and VOTING have begun for the Christmas Treasures hosted by Teddies Worldwide! I hope you will all take a minute to vote for your favourite bear! It is going to be a fabulous show with 75 international artist and lots of Christmas spirit!

Here is my preview of,  not only my bear for this enchanted show but it is also the release of the new style for Seraphim Bears! In the beginning I made a bear that I loved but it needed reworking and this is the outcome! I hope you love Toodle-Pip and I will be back to remind you of the show with any luck ... hopefully our computer will be up and running in the new location by then!

It's almost time for the Online Bear show

Hello Everyone:

Well, it is almost time for the Teddies Worldwide online bear show! I am participating in this show again this year and I have FIVE very special bears to offer you this year.

In the beginning of my bear making I based my bears on some sketches that my husband created for me based on my descriptions to him of what I was hoping to create. I made them for a short while and then started to create a more traditional style of bear which ended up winning me the TOBY and URSA. But I felt a longing for my Melancholy bears.

With a few more years experience under my belt I finally felt ready to address the issues I had with the original bears... ie. they would not sit on their own and were leaners. I had wanted to fix this issue in the beginning but was not sure how to do so without changing the image of the bear I had in my mind. So now, with much more experience of bear making I was able to redesign this pattern.

I am so very happy with them and so excited to share them with you... but of course I cannot until the show.... RULES, don't ya just hate em. Anyway... I am happy to announce that the design is now flawless and the bears are adorable! They sit on their own and their little feet are wonderfully cute as are their faces. Their clothes are handmade by me with my signature hand dyed material and I just cannot wait to share them with you!

I will have 3 in the new design, 1 traditional and 1 Kitty cat in the new design also... FIVE new Seraphim Bears will be up for adoption at the show. Please come and visit as there are 75 artist participating so this is a great opportunity to see a lot of talent in one spot without ever having to leave the comfort of your home.

The last day of the show I will also be participating in the Teddy Bears On Vacation show in Toronto Ontario so if you can make it to that we can say Merry Christmas in person!

The link to the online bear show is on my side bar at the top and looks like this so bookmark it and put it on your calendar! It is an event not to be missed!

Have a great night and I will be back soon with the gallery sneak peak image of one of the bears that will be ready for adoption in this show!

See you soon!

Another Charity Bear

I just wanted you to meet Mildred. She was given to a local Charity called Cougars for Cancer that will be raising money this year to help find a cure for lung cancer!

I absolutely enjoyed making her. Her hat is handmade by me out of grain bag material, which is my signature material for outfitting my bears of late. All the flowers have been handmade by me out of ribbon. Her wee dress has also been created with a grain bag base with added flapper style tassels.  Mildred's nose is hand embroidered and waxed and her eyes are green buzzard style glass eyes! She is a really pretty bear and I hope she brings a bit of sunshine to who ever adopts her... as well as making some well needed money for a very good cause!

Thank you for accepting Mildred for your charity bear!

Practical Magic... part 2

Tomorrow I will be hosting a small party... The Practical Magic party is happening again and I am not sure how I am to pull this off tonight but I will do my very best to do it! So please come to my other blog...

Seraphim's Diner for the Practical Magic party

I was a part of this last year and with all that has been happening lately I almost missed out completely but I still have time! See you there tomorrow!

The Melancholy Move

Some of you might know from my Facebook log ins that I am in the process of moving. We purchased a new house and now are in the process of trying to sell ours! Our offer for our new house was unconditional but we still don't want to end up carrying two mortgages. So things have been pretty hectic around her lately to say the least. We had a viewing before our house even went on the market two days ago and the house is officially up as of today and it seems the person who came through wants to come with their family to take another look through. So last night we continued to do more on this house for him! We painted the basement bathroom... a job I had wanted to do for a year and never got it done for me! Hahahaha and we also put up all the rest of the baseboards for the downstairs area too. Needless to say we are both tired and my hubby might be sick... oops, is sick, he just came in for his morning hug! Oh darn!

So with all this going on my bear making has been put on hold! I am hoping to get something done tonight and I did manage to get one cut out last night. I have three in the final stages and a new/old design is coming back! I am really excited to show you these new bears as they are reaching back to my very beginning when my husbands sketches were the inspiration! These are the Melancholy bears and they have a ton of character and personality! They make me smile every time I look at them and I hope they will do the same for you too!

I have several bears to get ready and I do have a few on the go but it is proving difficult lately what with packing and showings of the house etc. I have a few Christmas shows this year; one local, one online, and one in Toronto so I need to get movin on the bears but I am hopeful that it will all come together soon! Unfortunately I cannot show you the bears that I have so far as there is that big rule of no viewings until the show. But I can tell you that I am doing my best to give you something wonderful for Christmas!

I have to go and get the bathroom restaged before I run off to work as we painted only last night!

Big bear hugs and I will be back soon!