Production

Well, I am a day late on my promise to share some of my production pictures.  But better late than never...

I have been concentrating on bears the past week or so.  Each bear is made from 9 crochet pieces, each starched individually and then glued together.  Once the bear is together, I add the nose tip and the eyes, and the bears seem to get a personality.

arms and legs drying

I have enough dowels to starch 12 bears at a time, and because it is a messy business, I tend to spend a whole evening starching so I can have the mess all at one time.

I love to work in miniature, so each bear is holding something - and most of what they hold I make from Bread Dough.

If you have never tried this, it is so much fun.  It can be used for all kinds of projects, but I use it for things like pizza's and cookies for my Baker Bears - flowers for my bride and grooms, and other miniatures, that I cannot buy.

There are a lot of recipes on the Internet for the bread dough, but I use the same one I have used for years.

3 slices white bread
3 tablespoons white glue
1/2 teaspoon glycerine.

The bread is best when it is several days old.  Remove the crusts and shred the bread, add the glue and gycerine and mix it with my hands.  The mix starts out to be very sticky, but the more you work it, the smoother it becomes.... don't give up on it, just keep working it and soon you will have a nice dough.  I colour my dough with acrylic paint at this stage instead of painting the finished product.  I find the finished product much better and very close to china when it dries.   I make several colors of dough at one time, and put them in sandwich bags and then in a margarine container, and they keep for months and months.  When you need to make something, all you do is take it out of the fridge, roll it around in your hand for a few minutes and then have fun creating.

glued bears without eyes and not much personality

I have done a few mice too... these are not as much work as the bears, but great little guys too.

So this is what I have been doing.  I want to have 60-100 bears for my sale in December, as well as mice, soldiers, hats, snowflakes and of course angels.  I also am adding some bridal purses this year  as well.

So now when I don't show up here for a few days, you will know what I am doing!

Happy Crafting!