Welcome to the Where Bloggers Create II Studio Tour. This event is hosted by the lovely Karen Valentine of My Desert Cottage. If you want to tour more studios, she has a great long wonderful list of participants. Just go on over and take your pick. Have some fun! Get inspired!
Inspired - now there’s a word. Last summer that is exactly what I felt. Inspired. And inspiration leads you to do some crazy things. My husband’s first clue that life would be topsy turvy for a few weeks was when I said, “As long as we’re going to have to move everything out to replace the carpet, why not paint as well?” Thus the re-do of my bear making studio began. Come on in. Let me show you around.

Door’s open!

My space is a bonus room with half walls on two sides. It definitely provides some challenges when you are trying to figure out how to organize and make it your own.

For the walls, I chose a beautiful light blue color called Tradewind and since much of my storage is white, I decided that Snowbound would be the trim. How’s that for balance? A little bit of summer and a little bit of winter. It also provides a nice restful contrast to the craziness that goes on in my head. The white surfaces make this space feel larger and I can easily find things that have gone walking – a paw pad, an ear, a needle or pin.

Just inside the door I have this taboret which houses small things for bear making – tools, perle cotton, thread, glitter, thread and . . . um thread. Oh - and ribbons too.

Here’s my sewing table. These bears are in shock. They didn’t know that there was a surface under there! I tidied it for you all. I didn’t want to frighten anyone.

I personalized the shelves throughout the studio with favorite quotes. They hold a combination of useful and decorative things. Many remind me of good times like the Raggedy Ann that my mom made for me years and years ago. I just love her! And a few of my own bears are there, too. FYI, I never have been able to accumulate much in that teddy bear fund jar!

This is my bear making table where all the parts and pieces come together. It is parallel to my sewing table. My chair swivels from my sewing machine to the work table and back again. Quite often I am back and forth, back and forth, between the two tweaking and fine-tuning heads and arms and legs. (My husband tells people I have a very special machine. It only sews on fur fabrics, not the regular stuff. Some actually believe him too.)

Here’s a special custom-made ironing board we created for just this space. It fits right on top of two short bookshelves and serves its purpose very well. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. I still haven’t figured out what the mother of intervention is though.
Those fabrics there came with me all the way from Iowa last week. I can’t wait to make it into some palm-sized teddy bears.

This spot is where my husband and I can watch movies and it’s also a good place to read . . . and sleep – accidentally of course!

More shelves that hold storage jars. And storage jars that hold trims and things. Trims and things that adorn teddy bears and their friends. Some of whom decided they like hanging out in my studio.

I couldn’t resist adding a couple of clotheslines with some decorated clothespins. My mom made these dresses for my bears. I miss her – she was so very creative and inspiring!

Then of course there’s the technology department. Monitor, printers, routers and such. I don’t know much about how they work but I do know without them I wouldn’t be a bearmaker/blogger. I’d just be a bearmaker and that would just be sad.
That’s the end of the tour. Thank you so much for dropping by. I hope you have a great day visiting all the other bloggers’ spaces. I’m off to visit as many as I can – it may take me all week – between making teddy bears and getting ready for Father’s Day.
Happy Father’s Day to the two best fathers I know –
my husband and my dad!