Thursday, September 27, 2012

Panda Party 2012...

The House of Bears in Bath is having a 5th Birthday party, 
on the weekend of the 6th and 7th of October.

 Every year the lovely Sue has a themed party to raise Money for Macmillan Cancer Support and this year the theme is Panda's. I was delighted to be asked to create 4 "Pink Panda Mice" for the occasion and here they are...



This is the first time I have created a "series" of the same colourings. 
From right to left there's Musgrove, Wentworth, Benwick and Harville. 
I have donated Little Harville to the Chairty Bear Sale, see more about this here.

There are so many beautiful bears available for this event, you can see more of them on the House of Bears facebook page or the website.




Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Washington DC

This is the last instalment of our holiday photos and its a small one because half of the Washington pictures have disappeared! I think they must be on a memory card somewhere but I can't find it, oh well it will turn up and for now here's a flavour of the capital of the USA.

Washington DC was everything I expected it to be, business like, epic, but strangely flat compared to NY. However it was like NY because the places are so familiar you feel like you are on a movie set! And as a big fan of The West Wing I kept expecting Josh, CJ, Leo or Toby to be just around the corner!


The Capitol Building at Twilight


Thomas Jefferson


Dr Martin Luther King


Dr Martin Luther King quotes 


Lincoln


Most impressive by night


The White House
Smaller than I thought it would be but no less impressive


Capitol Building by day, 
I think this was my favourite building, the tour guide was excellent.

We had such a wonderful end to our trip, we walked miles, enjoyed lunch with two lovely friends, watched films at night in the art house cinema and even saw Batman at the Air and Space Imax. 

It was once again an epic trip with memories we will treasure forever.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Visits with friends...

Next stop on our trip was Raleigh NC to visit with our dear friends 
ginger and Jay. This was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to and it did not disappoint! 

(now for those of you that read ginger blog 
you may spot some copies here, so I'm sorry about that)


We arrived at the Brame household/hotel late on the Thursday night, we immediately were made to feel at home and I got rather over excited to see ginger's studio! After collecting her bears for years before we were friends, to see where the magic happens just blew my mind! So after I calmed down and we unpacked it was time for bed, after all we had a very important day planned for the Friday......


Our very important job was shopping! I had told ginger all the places I wanted to visit and while Jay was at work we went coupon crazy. Now this is something kinda new to us, although we have special offers and vouchers for shopping over here in the UK its really not like the coupon business in the states. So me and Lex took full advantage of this coupon crazy and got some amazing bargains.


Here we are at the local coffee shop after a hard days shopping


On the Saturday we went to the Lazy Days craft event, I've never seen so many quality crafted items


I love these photos of us, we had such a good day


That's a corn-boat!


Next we headed to visit the wonderful Linda and Jim 
for a spot more food


We had such fun here too, we laughed a lot!


One evening we visited Kripsy Kreme


Well it was founded in North Carolina, so we had to go right?!




We also had to visit Bowjangles for biscuits, because that's just what is done at the weekend!


On afternoon while Lex and Jay went off looking for laptops, me and ginger stayed at home, swung on the swings, sewed on the porch and chatted the afternoon away




At some point ginger made these, and they were yummy


And then on our last night when we really didn't want to leave, ginger cooked this tasty meal, ziti, corn, veggie gratin and then .......


Apple dumplings for pudding, they were lush

We of course did many other things together, this is just a small snippet of our visit with my favourite teddy bear artist and her lovely husband.

Thanks guys for such a lovely stay, we miss you already and can't wait for our next holiday together!

Monday, September 17, 2012

Available bears and mouse!

I am pleased to share with you 3 little ones I have available for purchase, if you would like to give any of these darlings a home please drop me an email 

shantockbears@tiscali.co.uk



"Cary"
5"
£94 + P&P



"Tyson"
4"
£84 + P&P


"Oakwood"
3.5"
£82 + P&P

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Asheville & The Blue Ridge Parkway

So after the show we jumped into the car and headed South to Asheville NC. Our main aim was to spend some time driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway and do a bit of walking. We enjoyed this wonderful area so much, we had fun shopping, eating  and playing mini golf in Asheville (a rather usual, arty town), we drove North and South on the parkway and we hiked up and down mountains and gorges to waterfalls!

Here's a selection of the many photos we took... 


The Blue Ridge Parkway, a beautiful road


Linville falls


Trekking down to the falls


Bottom of the falls


Funky cart in Asheville


"Hello"


We walked all the way around this lake, 
its a pity I can't remember its name!


It's not a holiday unless we play some mini golf 


Craggy Gardens


This stunning girl was at Grandfather Mountain


And so was she, we spent ages watching these girls


Crazy shop in Asheville


We brought quite a lot here


Asheville is a arty town, 
everywhere you look there's something interesting to see


This was on the side of a tattoo shop


Another photo of the Blue Ridge Parkway


And finally on our way to our next destination we stopped at Black Mountain 

Tune in next time for our visit with friends...

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Back-tracking...

“We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.” - Jeremy Irons

Let me take you in my time machine, we are only going back a few weeks but its best to hold on tight!

I'm sorry to say its taken me nearly a month to post these photos. We returned home from our epic USA trip on 2nd September and I've only just come up for air after the Hugglets panic. With all that over I am so pleased to share with you some of the good times we had on our Great American Road Trip 2012.

The beginning of the trip started in Binghamton, NY at the...


Some of you will recognise these two, 
our good friends ginger and Jay. 
I was so excited to see these guy's.


Here's me and Lex at the Sock-Hop


The brits! 
Me and Katherine of Katie-Rae Bears


ginger's gallery piece, isn't it amazing?!
You can read more about it here, here, here, here and here!


The gallery pieces, look how small my "First day at Hogwarts" looks next to that beautiful Halloween panda.


The stage had a wonderful Christmas display


Art Rogers gallery Piece


Here's those two again, don't they look pretty


Here's me with the lovely Terry and Caryn. 
We met last time I attended TBAI 
and I was so looking forward to seeing these ladies again. 
Thank you both for your generous support of my work.


"First Day at Hogwarts"
My gallery piece


Mine and gingers stalls backed onto each others
so we could catch up on gossip the whole time.


 Me and the brilliant Donna from Donna and the Bears


Cookout at the zoo after the show


Before you ask no I didn't have two plates to myself, 
the other plate is Lex's! 
Although the food is so good I could of eaten two plates.


And lastly I think this photo sums up the whole weekend, happy, smiley fun!! 

Over the next few days I'll share more photos of the next place we visited Asheville NC. 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...