Teddies Worldwide Teddy Bear EXTRAVAGANZA

Hello Everyone: Seraphim Bears will have SIX never before seen bears this weekend beginning Friday March 22nd at 4:00pm NEW YORK - Eastern Standard time! Here is your link for the show:

 TEDDIES WORLDWIDE - EXTRAVAGANZA


This is the preview bear for Seraphim Bears: Her name is Roselyn and you can place your votes for your favourite bear on the Teddies Worldwide site until March 22 at noon!

 The show ends on March 24th!

Wishing you all a very wonderful weekend and I hope you enjoy the show!

Developement and Availability

After last year with my health issues - heart problem diagnosis, and all the polls I took on the blog I spent a lot of time redesigning my bears. I am thrilled with them and I know you will be too! They are the new line of Seraphim Bears - the Over-Hugged bears. All are stuffed with cotton, wool, wood wool, and granules. All are nicely aged and beautifully weighted! Created using only the very finest materials in mohair, alpaca and viscose... when have you ever seen an aged alpaca bear? Well, you will see them here.

Each bear has a "Heart Pocket" which is a pocket built right into the bear, right over the heart area and in that pocket you will receive a Lucky Canadian Penny. It is my way of sharing with you the joy of life and living. It was lucky for me to have finally been diagnosed with my heart issue and because of that doctor, finally taking the time to look at all that he could, he found the issue and was able to prescribe medications that have given me my life back. So in this little heart pocket I hope you will remember how precious life is, how much you are cared for and loved and appreciated by me and the Seraphim Bears. You may even get another little "something" that will fit into that heart pocket. But for sure there will be a Canadian Lucky penny.

And for those of you who do not know... here in Canada if you pound a penny it was considered lucky indeed... you were to make a wish on it immediately and even share the luck by then giving it away! And... now the Canadian penny is not being minted. As of last Monday the penny will no longer be a part of Canada's currency, so it is truly lucky and considered a collectors item.

Here are the first transition bears: These bears are truly one of a kind as these bears were an essential part of the transition from my traditional bear pattern to the new Over-Hugged pattern. Declan has already found his forever home and will now be living in the UK but Lavinia is in search of her new home. Please contact me if you are interested in the adoption of Lavina. I will be happy to work with you on a  layaway plan for any of my bears.

Seraphim Bears on Bear Pile 

 I have been spending a lot of time on my graphic skills with my very talented husband who is teaching me his art. I hope you enjoy the new polished look of the images. It takes many hours to get things prepared behind the scenes as I take all my photos myself, which I also took several courses at college night classes for, and now I am also able to use photo editing programs to create these beautiful photos that I feel truly capture the life of each bear. It takes more than just pointing and shooting to get the personality of the bear across and knowing that you have put your trust in Seraphim Bears pushes me to always advance in my skills.

I know that purchasing a bear over the internet can be a scary thing and I want to make it as comfortable as possible. My images must be clear and the bear must come to life for you. If ever you need to see more photos or have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me. I will continue to develop as an artist and do my very best to be as accurate for you as possible. I want you to be able to feel the bear through your computer screen and be even more impressed when that bear arrives and you meet her/ him in person and never disappointed! I also try to be as descriptive as possible so you can visualize what my words are saying as well as looking at your monitor. I know each monitor is different and colours can appear changed from what they actually are so please read my descriptions carefully as I will always try my very best to describe what the colour is in person!

I am also beginning to design my own clothing for the bears. This has been a challenge but in a good way. My bears are created to represent the old and yet encompassing something new in my design and so the clothing must reflect that image. I have always loved the eras of the 20's, 30's and 40's and I think you will find many influences in the design of my clothing from those times and before then too, 1800's for example. I have a bear right now that I have almost completed that will be up for adoption at the Teddy Bears Worldwide show in March who is wearing a beautiful outfit that I designed, reminiscent of the 1800's. The theme for this years show is EXTRAVAGANZA so I wanted the bear to be very elaborate.

In saying that, my clothes must still envelope the style of aged appearance! I do created them in a well constructed way and not a primitive style but I still try to capture that worn appearance. I also want them to last though so I am trying to make the clothes with great attention to detail and construction. Lavinia's outfit for instance is well developed and sewn but I have purposely added a few pulls to the fabric or it would have stood out like a sore thumb on this beautifully aged bear. I also added a finishing touch on her outfit of a vintage clip on crystal earring.

There are many new developments happening here at Seraphim Bears and not just with the bears themselves. Seraphim Bears is now being developed as a business. So there has been much studying done in that aspect as well... many late nights reading books on marketing, business essentials etc. and there are possible plans in the future of taking a business developmental course. Three weeks away from home to learn all the boring government stuff... but essential to give you a professional sound place for you to adopt your bears. All this costs money and time but you are worth it to me. My bears are worth it to me too. I want you to know and trust that when you put your trust in Seraphim Bears there is far more going on here than just cutting and sewing some fabric. I want you to know that I am taking care of you in every possible way I can. That you will be looked after and treated as you should be, as a valued customer and friend.

So in that... I am off to continue in the development of Seraphim Bears. Today I will work on completing a new Tatted neck piece for Mrs. Patmore bear who will be at the Teddies Worldwide show. Learning to tat is a challenge with all that tiny thread but one day at a time and the pieces are getting more and more beautiful! Yet another handmade item that I have taken a course to learn so I can make the bears look like what I see in my minds eye and you can enjoy them in your hearts and homes.

Be back soon with more... Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to be the first to know what's happening here at Seraphim Bears! The sign up box is on the right side bar!

Big Hugs from me and the Seraphim Bears

Seraphim Bears 100 Bear Milestone Giveaway!

Hello Everyone:


Seraphim Bears has now created 100 bears and counting!!!! So I would like to say thank you to all of you by having a FREE GIVEAWAY BEAR. This is going to be a very special bear - a gift of my appreciation for your support and love.

On my side bar you will see a voting poll - it's located at the very top right hand side... here is where you can decide what style of bear you want! And just to refresh your memories I am posting here two bears in each of the styles so you know what's what. (These bears are just examples of style - the contest bear will not be made until October 2012 after the results of the poll have been taken)

TRADITIONAL

BEARDED MELANCHOLY

Pinkaboo was bear number 100!!!

The first poll which will dictate the style of bear will go until the last day in August.

The second poll will dictate whether the bear is a boy or a girl and will go on for the month of September.

October will be my month to create your bear and we will do the draw then also... I will post a draw date when I get the bear near completion.

Until then, you need to know How To Enter for the FREE GIVEAWAY Bear:

To get your name in the pot: email me or comment here to let me know you participated in the poll.

Post on your blog or Facebook page about my giveaway and poll vote - this will put your name in the pot a second time.

You will have a third chance to get your name in the pot nearer to the end of this giveaway.

Thanks for participating in Seraphim Bears 100 Bear Milestone Giveaway!

TIME TO VOTE for the URSA 2012

Time to vote for the URSA awards 2012 ROUND ONE: VOTE NOW TILL JULY 29th
Final voting begins August 11th to September 7th

Seraphim Bears has three entries this year in the 2012 URSA awards and we  need your votes to help us along in this competition.

The first entry is in category # 3- Medium Bare Bears. Her name is Saxifrage

The second is in category # 5 - Large Bare Bears. Her name is Sweet Juliet (alternatively named Sera-Fina)

The last is in category # 19 - It's All the Same - Bunny and his name is Little Lord Velvedere

Here are the RULES:

You can only place one vote per category. Please follow this rule and we will keep this competition honest!

HOW TO VOTE:

Follow this link: URSA 2012 Awards Competition

Once on the page view your choices
Find the bear you like
Go to the very bottom of the page and click on the word VOTE

This will take you to a new page where you can click on the bear you wish to vote for.

Go to the bottom of that page and click the word VOTE! That will place your actual vote for your choice in that category.

*** If you get a notice that says you have already voted and you have NOT voted in that category, you will need to clear or delete all the cookies from your computer. Then try to vote in that category again!***

Once you have placed your vote in the category, go back with your back button and click the big arrow at the bottom of the page that will take you to the next category in the competition!

Follow all these steps again until you have reached the end of the competition.

THERE IS NO CATEGORY # 13... wouldn't want to cause any bad luck!

Thank you all for participation in this competition. We couldn't do it without you, nor would we want to! You're what makes this all fun... this contest is for you so have fun while you enter another year of the URSA awards!

Winners will be announced on OCTOBER 1st 2012


 

Sneak Peek of a new bear and new design

FINALLY a sneak peek of a new Seraphim Bear and new design also. This is Blueberry Bill... He will be ready soon. Just some final touches on his handmade boat!

Orphan for sale

For the first time at least to my knowledge, one of my mini bears is back up for sale as an orphan.

The owner is in France and has her up for sale on bear pile at a very low price...

I can verify this bear is still in good shape as she has only had her for a short time and has now posted new images that she herself has taken.

If anyone loved Raggamuffin ... now is your chance to be her new forever home.

If you have any questions about this bear please feel free to ask me personally and I will be happy to answer them.

Here is Raggamuffin's link:  Click here to see Raggamuffin

Have a wonderful day!

PS NEW BEARS AND NEW DESIGNS ARE ALMOST READY TO SHOW YOU....

A few new bears

Here are a few new bears that I created of late. As of now I will be offering a lot more bears through Bear Pile, Ebay and Etsy for my collectors who for the past two years have been waiting very patiently for me and coming to the shows. I have only been able to supply to the stores which I am hoping to change now. I have two little bears that are still looking for forever homes so I will post one on Ebay this weekend! But for now here are a few for you to see that you have not seen as yet! Big Hugs

 Bearded Melancholy Bear - Pinkaboo

Bearded Melancholy Bear - Cuthbert Grant

Traditional Bear - Margaret Merril

Happy Friday the 13th - Three New Bears

Hello Everyone

Happy Friday the 13th. I know a lot of you out there consider this a bad luck day but for us we have always considered it a GOOD luck day! That's surely always nice to hear and I thought that maybe if I made a post today it would spread the GOOD so you would forget about the bad!


What I can share with you are the three Seraphim bears that are now awaiting adoption at Collin's Gifts:

They are Parker, Wylie and Delta Dawn - three bearded Melancholy bears

Click Here to visit Collin's Gifts

Have a great day everyone! Big Hugs from all of us here at Seraphim Bears.... now it is off to work to complete the Summer collection for Silly Bears! 5 bears are on their way to Scotland on Monday!

Happy Friday the 13th everyone!

Meet ~ Penny Whistle

In my traditional style bears this is my latest made out of alpaca and 20" tall. His belly is filled with copper pennies and his Victorian Ribbonwork boutineer is also handmade by me.

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!

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!

A New Bear Available for Adoption

New bear now available for adoption on Bear Pile:

Bear Pile Adoption for AMELIA

Close up of Sundae's little feeties

Debbie Sweren asked to see a closer picture of Sundae's little feet so here it is:

Now I am off to meet with Jillian... ahrrrrr!

Artist Profile and Sneak Peek

I just wanted to give you all the link to the latest Artist Profile on Me and the Seraphim Bears. It was written in both German and English so this link is to the English version only.

TeddyBear News Seraphim Bears Arist Profile

I started the felting on the second bear today and will get some more work done on the first one that will be a part of the Bears In Bloom show. The second is an all white bear and so far is as sweet as the first. I got a lot of great response from family and friends today when I showed them a sneak peek. I am itching to show you all so I will try to get the second done as quickly as I can but I must not compromise the bear so... patience my friends. Their little puffy cheeks and smile are so expressive and they have pretty felted noses. The hair is hand punched into the muzzles and they have no eyelids as I love the vintage boot buttons... that is just my thing. They are whimsical and still have that Seraphim Bear charm with that twinkle of magic in their eyes. Here are two of the  design sketches to entice you...

Be back soon...Have a wonderful and creative day!

NEW paw pad design and BIG schedule

Sorry it took me a few extra days to get back here to post the NEW paw pad design but my schedule keeps getting more and more filled and BIG plans for 2011 keep on gettin' BIGGER!

So first thing is the new paw pad design... I hope you love them as much as I do. As I mentioned they take a lot more time and many stages to do but I think it is worth it. Look close and you will see that my initials of MS are on the paws. M on one and S on the other... nice and subtle just how I like it. On the front paws which I do not have pictured here there is an O on the pad which is the O in XO like a HUG.

And some more happy news for Seraphim Bears:

It's official that some of my bears will be at the Hugglets with my UK stockist Silly Bears. Woohoo... I am so jealous! I am just simply thrilled to have my babies at this spectacular show, a show I have always dreamed of attending. I know it might seem crazy that I am so excited over this but as a Canadian with a British background it is such an absolute thrill I cannot even put it into words.

Also in the news of Seraphim Bears, it is now official that I will be attending and participating in the TBAI 2011 show and creating a spectacular one of a kind piece to help raise money for endangered species ~ the "Treasures of the World" Gallery Challenge! The plans are already in the mix and the first sketches have been drafted... oh there will be many, many more sketches to come and then pattern drafting and then a practice piece and the list goes on and on. But I can say the idea has been set in my mind and I am already in love with it and only hope I do the images in my mind justice when I translate it into the actual piece.

5 bears are soon to be shipped of to Scotland and I am finishing up ~ final touches on the 15 bears I have created for the Tampa Florida show in February!

There have been many long nights and many more to come but I am enjoying every single minute of it... I'm taking a minute each night to drink it all in and take pleasure in this journey.

Have a wonderful and creative day and I'll try to get back here soon with more of what's new with the bears!

SWEET PEA now up for adoption

Just wanted to let you all know that Sweet Pea is now available for adoption on Bear Pile.

To visit Bear Pile CLICK HERE 

The BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER!!!

Honestly the best Christmas present I have ever received... sorry Mum but this one even beats the roller skates in the 80's!

So... it's been a really long time since a gift has brought me to tears but today ... a very special gift did!

Not an easy task to make me this special gift...

It took my husband months and months and it was sooooo wonderful to hear all about the journey to bringing this creation to fruition 

First a very special pillow needed to be purchased,
Then some buttons needed to be carefully removed from my stash without me noticing...
Then there was a much needed pattern...
where would he look... the computer, where some of my patterns are kept.

Once the patterns were found he knew that he wanted this gift to be his own and so the mixture of several patterns was reworked until he was satisfied that what he had drawn might work.

The pillow was cut apart so that the special material could be used...

I had made him fabric juggling balls years ago that were filled with steel shot so he knew he needed some of that...

then there were the joints...

have you guessed it yet...

what my husband made for me this year?

There were no machines that he could use to sew with as my machines are in plain sight and almost always in use by me so he had to hand sew the entire gift...

He would sneak off to his workshop to "weld" some of his art but really for months and months he was drawing a pattern, cutting material, sewing by hand...

attaching the eyes, jointing the arms and legs...

and especially for me... a very FIRST one of a kind Sinister Creations BEAR was born!

A sweet pudgy 9" plush bear with zombie eyes made of pearl buttons and an embroidered nose!!!He even has a gusset... can you even imagine?

"WOW!" he say to me after I open this gift..."What you do it HARD! The NOSE was the hardest! It was falling apart so I used wood glue and painted it after I embroidered it!"

LET ME TELL YOU ALL... this bear, for me, surpassed all the other gifts, even the one in the jewelry store box.

I simply cannot believe how blessed I am to have found this wonderful mysterious man who always seems to abound my expectations and dreams... it will forever be my very favourite bear! It will indeed, without a doubt, be the best gift ever!

So here he is in all his splendour... please meet MORTIMER!

He came with his ATC card with all his specs as all "my" bears do also. He has sweet little round paw pads which are super hard to make and even wears a vintage cross necklace! He is just simply the most beautiful bear in the world to me.

Funny thing too...

This was the year that I made my husband his first bear from me...

Here they are together...

Mortimer and Forevermore:

Bravo my love... he is splendid in every way.

Thank you so much for such a heartfelt gift, you have genuinely touched my soul.

A Special Visit for Cozy

I had a wonderful visit from one of my Collectors on Tuesday this week. Ingrid, drove in from out of town to pick up her new Seraphim Bear ~ Cozy ~ and with her she brought three of her own bears to escort Cozy to her new forever home.

It was a very nice visit and wonderful to meet Ingrid's bears. I was so happy to see Cozy going to a good home and joining her little brother ~  the white rabbit ~ that Ingrid adopted at this years Teddy Bears On Vacation show in Toronto.

Ingrid also showed up with a little bear for me,

a mini manufactured bear who is simply adorable and is now sitting in my tree ~

the stocking that this little bear is in was handmade by her Mom.

To you and all of your families...

A NEW bear to share... Finally!

I think it is time to share a bear with you... don't you... gosh it's been a really long time since I could as I really needed to keep these bears a secret till now.

As you know the Teddy Bears On Vacation show is right around the corner and I managed to make a total of 20 bear plus three that have been sent to Silly Bears in Scotland.

Whhheew, I am a bit pooped to be honest but I am really REALLY excited about the show and am already working on new patterns and bears for the Spring show in 2011 and FIVE more bears for Silly Bears.

So here we go...

I would like you all to meet: CLOUD!

She is made of wool and is heavily weighted and the most angelic of the line up for the show. She is 13" tall and is slightly under stuffed to give her a nice slouch when she is seated. She has a silk ribbon around her neck, vintage key and a rusty bell.

Most Expensive Teddy by Steiff

Most Expensive Teddy Bear

The German teddy bear company, Steiff is responsible for the production of this expensive collectible bear   made commemorate its 125th anniversary.

The expensive bear has a mouth made of solid gold and fur made from gold thread. Topping off the teddy bear are jeweled eyes featuring sapphire pupils with diamond irises.