Winter Bearfest Preview 2011

Here's 12 little cuties ready and waiting to go on Sunday

(I'm planning to bring a few more than this, keep your fingers crossed)

Blueberry-Pie

4"

Bubblegum
4"

Cherry Puff
4"

Lissy

3"

Socks

3"

Vanilla
4"

Eliza

5"

Ripples
5"

Popsicle
5"

Georgie
5"

Queenie
5"

Sad Sidney

5"

See you in hall 4, stall 125

Click here for the Hugglets website

One week to go......

SUNDAY 27th FEB 2011

10:30-4:00

For more details please visit the Hugglets website by clicking on the above picture

A week today the doors will be open, the collectors will be at their favourite stalls and I shall be happy!

I know I've said it before but I do so LOVE a Hugglets show. Many years before I started making bears I went to my first Hugglets, I'd been to a few local shows but these had not prepared me for a Hugglets Sunday. We got there early (well we thought it was early 10am) to find a queue all the way down the road! I couldn't believe it, when we were let through the doors I remember being shocked at how people knew were they were going, dashing off to their favourite artists, me and Mum just didn't know where to start, these days I still miss that buzz of collecting, although I now have a my dream at exhibiting at Hugglets I miss being there as a collector. I wouldn't change it for the world, I'd just like to clone myself so I could enjoy both aspects of the day!

Oh and yes this year will be even more exciting because my favourite bear artists is coming to town!!!!!!!!!! My friend ginger of The Piece Parade and her lovely husband Jay are arriving in the UK from North Carolina at the weekend and will be a couple of tables away from me in hall 4. I met ginger for the first time at the TBAI last year. Although I felt as if I already knew her because we have "chatted" on email for years as I have a few of gingers beautiful bears. I'm really looking forward to seeing this beautiful lady and her very funny husband. Make sure you pop by her stall on Sunday before I buy all her bears ;-)

Here's s small example of gingers work

Happy Valentines Day

Some of my favourite romantic films/couples!

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Paul/Fred & Holly Golightly

Romeo and Juliet

Its a Wonderful Life
George and Mary Bailey

You've Got Mail

Joe Fox & Kathleen Kelly

Wonderful Waterfall Walk

Let me take you on a stroll to the Kalidonia Waterfalls......

Look there's snow

This walk was about 2km up hill and we had to cross over the river quite a few times

Nearly at the top

Can you see the rainbow?

It was a magical walk, even though it was cold because we were high up in the mountains the sun was shining and all was right with our little world for a few hours!!

Beautiful beaches

As you can see the coast line of Cyprus has some really has fantastic beaches

Just to prove we did have one spectacular day of sunshine

Lex paddling at Nissi beach

Nissi beach
Guess who's toes?!
Another view from Nissi beach Sea Caves, Cape Greco
Cape Greco
The nearest beach to our villa that I've forgotten the name of!
Higher up view of that same nameless beach!

Tomorrow I'll share the waterfall walk

The cats of Cyprus!

Everywhere I went in Cyprus there were cats, in car parks, on the beach, walking in the town, outside Church's, even in Church's, its seems that there's two thinking's on why there are so many feral cats

1. They were brought in to help keep the rat population down
2. or to help the snakes problem

I'm really not sure which (if either) is true but being a lifelong cat lover I didn't really care I loved it. Lex is used to me going up to make friends with animals of all sorts, but it was pretty serious this time, I had cats follow me, clime on me, sit on me, I even had a crazy dog come running up to me one day and I couldn't get rid of it!!! In the end Lex started calling me Dr Doolittle!!!!!!!!

I also couldn't resist dragging Lex off to Malcolm's Cat Sanctuary, a charity quite local to us and of course one close to my heart, they care for around 200 cats, I thought it was fantastic the work the volunteers do. Here's the website if your interested:

http://http://www.malcolmcat.org/

Here's a few of the many cat pictures I took.

"Tock"

The resident feline at the donkey sanctuary

Drinking at the sanctuary

I've never seen so many cats in one place

A cat in a swimming pool!!!!

Chilling in the grass

Church cats! You can't see but right by these little ones was a church by the sea

This little guy reminded me of my Binky Bo Bops just a slightly different colour!

Cyprus adventure

The reason I've been a bit quite of late is because Lex whisked me away to Cyprus for 10 days, isn't he a gem!

We had a real relaxing time and although the weather wasn't great we did have a few days of sunshine. Neither of us had been to Cyprus before (even though Lex has travelled much the world and been to most places) so it was a new adventure for us both.

We spent alot of time chilling in our beautiful villa, watching Soprano's season 5 and 6 (part 1, we still need to see the final episodes) and Gavin and Stacey, eating lots (so now we both have to diet) and visting local ruins and monastery's, as the Hugglets show is only 3 weeks away (eekkk!) I had to take sewing with me and have now come home with 10.5 bears/mice ready to stuff (that .5 is because I've still got a head to sew up on one little grey bear)

I'll share some photos over the next few days (and the story of us nearly missing our flight home) when I've finished unpacking and generally got myself together, meanwhile here's a couple to keep you going......

Natural bridge at Cape Greco

Kalidonia Waterfall