Who wants to win a bear?

So...it's time for the first fundraising raffle of the year! For the first time ever I am offering you the chance to win a custom made bear worth £65. Whether it be made from your children's baby clothes, your wedding dress, or clothes belonging to a lost loved one....the choice is yours. Or you could just choose your favourite fabric and send me that instead.

I'm sure you all know by now what my bears are like, but here's a small selection to give you an idea what yours could be like!

This raffle will be raising money for Project Trust, and in particular, a lovely young lady named Leah. Leah has been selected to spend a year in India with the charity, while she is there she will be teaching English to the local people. In order for her to participate in this amazing opportunity she has to raise £5000 by August. I am really inspired by teenagers like Leah who do good work like this. They certainly don't get as much recognition as they deserve, so I am hoping we can help to raise a nice big chunk of the money she needs.

It's very simple to enter. For every £1 you donate, you will get one entry into the raffle. You can donate as much as you like! When you make your donation, please be sure to leave your name as anonymous donations won't be entered into the raffle. Also...very important...please write RAFFLE ENTRY into the message box so we can distinguish your donations from Leah's other fundraising efforts.

So, what are you waiting for? Here's the link where you can donate and enter:

Leah's Fundraising Page

The raffle will close at midnight on 13th March and the winner will be announced here and on my Facebook page soon after. Good luck everyone, and dig deep!

May Day...and mayhem

Well, the village May Festival was a HUGE success! My best stall so far in terms of sales, and one of the cheapest ones to attend as a stallholder, so it more than made up for the one where I barely made any profit at all.

This was my first outdoor stall, and I managed to borrow a gazebo from a friend (who then very kindly came over early in the morning to help me put it up). I was really pleased with how the stall looked, but judging by how big the gazebo is I could have easily had two tables and more stock. Maybe next time...

 

The lavender hearts which my Mum and daughter so kindly stuffed went down a storm. I'd have made a lot of money if I'd charged for every sniff that was taken too, no-one could resist picking them up and inhaling deeply!

 

But I think the best part of the day was seeing this little customers face when his Mum bought him a new bear:

 

 

Isn't that just adorable?! I'm sure that bear will be very well loved!

With the success of the May Festival I now need to make a lot more stock ready for the next one on the 30th. But first I think I need to tackle the sewing room. I think what you'd call this is organised chaos...or maybe just chaos...

Family...and a little taste of fame!

It's only when I look back at my old blog and the posts I wrote before we moved house that I realise how much my day to day life has changed in the past year. Posts then were full of stories of chickens and ducks, and vegetables growing. Now all that has gone. I'm not complaining of course, I'm very content, but writing a day to day blog just isn't possible these days. Partly because I'm so busy, but also because if I did I'd probably bore you all to tears as it would go something like this:

Took girls to school. Came home. Sat at sewing machine. Forgot to stop for lunch. Picked up girls from school. Sat at sewing machine. Girls made their own tea. Said goodnight to girls. Sat in front of tv...sewing.

And that is pretty much how it goes most days. Of course I occasionally do eat lunch, or leave the house for something other than the school run. But most of my time is spent sewing...and I love it. The girls get involved too, sometimes making their own things, sometimes helping me:

The garden has sadly been neglected. So much so that my wonderful Dad is coming to sort it for me! I will be stepping away from the sewing machine for 2 days to help him, and hopefully by the end of it there will be something growing out there other than weeds.

Bubs Bears won't be out of action for two days though. My Mum will be taking over and filling up these hearts with lavender ready for my stall at the May Festival next week.

 

So, what have I been making these past few weeks? I've managed over 16 bears since I last blogged, countless tea-towels, cards, buttons, magnets and other bits and bobs. Here's some of the bears:

 

There's a real mixture there. Some vintage fabric one-offs, some custom-made using baby clothes. There's also a couple made from school t-shirts to help raise funds for the school. The white one is going on my stall next week and we will be running a "Guess the name of the bear" competition and hope to raise £100 for my girls' school. Talking of raising money, a little bear which I donated to a cancer charity evening was auctioned for £131! How fantastic is that?

I've had 5 minutes of fame recently which was lovely. There is a new magazine out called Simply Homemade which has great craft projects and inspiration. One of their regular features is "Found on Folksy" and that's where my little shop was shown in Issue 3:

 

Despite all the sewing, I have managed to take a week off to spend some much needed quality time with my girls and my sister Nam. Nam lives in Brighton and we had a fun but hectic week with a trip to London (I finally got to go to Liberty!), and lots of eating out...Choccywoccydoodah was probably our favourite :)

 

It's been a while...

I realise it's been a while since I've posted, and this is only a short post to say sorry! I've suddenly been inundated with orders and have been sewing furiously from morning until bedtime to try and keep up. I have lots of new bears to show you, but they will have to wait. In the meantime I will just show you this beautiful photo of my stall (with me and my gorgeous daughter) taken at the It's Darling Fair in Bath. I'll be back soon to do a proper post, I promise!

Hearts and Flowers

The bears this past week have had a bit of a loved-up theme! I found out that Emma Bridgewater is now selling fabrics, so I bought some of the pretty hearts one. So far two of these three gorgeous girls have been snapped up already:

 

The one at the top is still available through my Folksy shop (just click on the link to your right)

It's been a while since I made a wedding dress bear, so it was a pleasure to make this one for Caroline last week. Her dress was absolutely stunning, and I think her bear looks just as beautiful. Especially with her "something blue" flower!

 

 

It's Darling!

Just a quick reminder to you all that I will be here on Saturday:

 Do pop in if you are near Bath. It's free to get in!

 

Bear...or bare?

I'm not sure my feet have touched the ground this week, I've been so busy! Or, to be more truthful, that should be that my backside hasn't left my sewing chair! But it's all been worth it...let me show you what I've been up to.

The first project I finished this week was this beautiful bear made from baby Gracie's clothes as a present for her 1st birthday.

 

Gracie was clearly a very well dressed baby...just look at all the pretty details on her clothes:

 

It was a real pleasure to work with such gorgeous clothes and I was really pleased with how the bear turned out. Judging by her face, so was Gracie!

 

 My next project was something a little different. As some of you may know, I made some bears last year for Mel at Finleys Footprints, for them to give to bereaved parents at our local hospital. Mel approached me with another idea a few weeks ago and I was more than happy to get involved. She has written a children's story called "How Rainbows Are Made" and it will be produced as a personalised book to help families with young children come to terms with the loss of a baby. Each book will be tailor-made to suit the family, with the names of their children, and the pictures will be arranged to match.To give you an idea of my involvement, here's the front cover:

 

All the individual pieces of the pictures are made of fabric and can be moved around (a little like Fuzzy Felt) to suit the story. The books will be printed and laminated, bound with ribbon and will arrive in a lovely presentation box. The cost will be £15, will all proceeds going towards supporting bereaved families. For more info, or to order you can contact Mel via her website Finleys Footprints.

 

The rest of the time this week has been spent making sure I am ready for the first craft fair of the year this weekend. It's only a smallish one so it should break me in gently! As well as the usual stock of bears, bags and buttons, I now have some smaller bits and bobs to tempt people. My favourites are these cards, which are made by sewing fabric directly onto the card itself...simple but very effective I think, I love them :)

 

And the last thing I've done this week...well I may start to regret this one but I'm literally going to bare all for a cancer charity calendar! More on that another time... ;)