Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Hi Jane,
Sorry to hear of your pain...we missed you and definitely noticed your abscence! My Nanna had her gall bladder removed. I'm pretty sure it's done with keyhole surgery these days. Maybe Nurse Dilu will be more help! If it's been causing pain for some ime now....better out than in.;)
Sending ((((((((hugs)))))))) your way.:)

What a beautiful 'speech' Dilu...in fact you gave me a lump in my throat! Especially the last bit about the 'greats' and we all know who they are on this particular list. I agree wholeheartedly with your comment that there is no place for small mindedness in greatness no matter what it be. The greats and  all their 'apprentices' on this list are so gentle, encouraging and just all around 'great' full stop.You really have a way with words Dilu...no need to apologise for 'going on'.;)

WoW!! What an amazing house Dilu! Did you design it yourselves? It looks like it's straight out of a fairytale! Someone once commented about our house...that it's one of those homes where you walk thru the front door and don't need to ask directions to tha bathroom...humph!:P Definitely couldn't say that about yours! Fabulous!:cool: The reason I asked if it was your studio is because it looks quite small in the pic....guess looks are deceiving!

Obviously I am in dire need of some coffee...I DID spell check that before sending.....but I actually meant to say I CAN'T SEEM to see the pictures.

Dilu..I just had a look at your site (slowly wading my way thru everyones....) and I loved all your gollies...so unique with their wittle pointy noses! I have to ask though...the gollywoggle house.....is that your studio???
Also, I meant to tell you before when we were revealing our mugs for all....you have quite a striking resemblence to Jennifer Laing! Maybe it's just the photo, I dunno, maybe the girls who met you face to face at AAA can tell us. Sadly, I can seen to see any of the pics from that day either.:(:(:(

He's just wonderful Shelli...almost good enough to EAT!!:DI like your compromise...putting the letter blocks around his hat instead of the basket handle....and really, you wouldn't have seen the lettering with the basket open anyways. But sometimes it's hard to see these things until the idea has been worked right thru isn't it? He'll be a smash hit for sure.:cool:

Wahhhhh..I can't see the pictures!!!!:(

Marie,
I know that you can remove fray stoppa with alcohol (now don't run off and slosh whiskey on your bear or anything...hear me out!;)). You can get it from the pharmacy. Just keep dabbing at it with clean alcohol soaked cotton wool balls. Someone on the other list said that it removed the ink that the fray check cause to bleed too so don't stress yet....try the alcohol.:)
Also...sharpies and biros should never be used on fabric....and that's why...because they bleed. Like some of the other girls have said, gel pens work great and don't bleed...and you can buy ultra fine tipped ones for tracing mini pieces too.

Fantastic Danni!!! I'm so pleased for you...you must be really chuffed! Now we weally NEED to put that name to a face.....rising stars can NOT be invisible!!! And I don't believe that you aren't pretty....if I can show my mug and not care what anyone thinks...so can you. C'MON!!!!:P

Good GRIEF Jane!! I am 38!! That makes me three years older than your oldest child....and I thought from your picture you looked about the same age as me! You certainly hold your age well!:P

Sue Ann,
I have a single brother who is turning 40 this year and rather depressed that Miss Right hasn't come his way yet. He has buried himself away in Papua New Guinea though...so I guess he'll end up marrying over there if he ever does!

What lovely stories (although some sad ones in there too:(). My personal feeling Judi, is that you should most definitely keep some of the bears that are extra special to you for your family. I know when you get good money for them it is a guilt trip not to sell them.....but once they are gone that's it...and the money pretty soon disappears too. Maybe the best thing to do would be to give your children and hubby a bear each....not one after the other,because that's not practical, but when a special one is born which you feel that extra something for....be kind to yourself and keep it! There will be plenty more bears to come...and like you said, if the unthinkable happened or you became disabled..those bears you kept would be so precious! A year or two ago, a quite well known bear artist here in Australia died...and a few months later, there were emails being circulated from her husband, desperately trying to buy back some of her bears....as he had none!
A friend here in Oz encouraged my to keep my earlier prize winners, even though at the time I was inclined to sell them because we needed the money...and now, I am so glad I did. There will be other bears for me to sell...but these ones are significant and special.
Daphne, I think what your hubby did it the ultimate compliment.....what a honey! A he bought it fair and square so you can never sell it now..and you got your money...win-win situation:lol:
Shelli, Baboo is a real charmer and I can see why he won your heart. That great background colour really sets his fur colour off beautifully too! You need to be kind to yourself too...and allow yourself to keep the next Potbelly bear that makes your heart flutter! Tell yourself you need to keep a sample of your work "to show visitors";)
Sue Ann..I'm so sorry about Lexie...it's bad enough that you would have liked to keep her, without the added insult of no payment and a nasty mummy for your bear.:( Sometimes we are just too trusting huh?

Gosh Jane...you look far too young to have a 23 year old daughter!
I really LOVED all those photos of everyone...it's just extra special being able to visualize you all when you post. All except for scaredy cats like DANNI of course...heehee!:P

That's just great Louise! Well done! I'm sure you'll be singing for days! I had a similar experience with a Taiwanese fella, who bought one of my bears at a stall, and went on to buy two more off my site within two weeks. Sure bumped my ego up a notch or two!
Very happy for you!:lol::lol::lol:

Yeah....but wouldn't you love to be able to take all that stuff and sell it! She has a real problem that woman...imagine not even opening the boxes once you receive them? Would love to know what's in some of them...many look like reams of paper!
Sue Ann...I can see why your cats love to play in your mohair.....I would like to play in your mohair!!! And I'd LOVE to rumage thru your 'scraps' basket! What treasure I would find! Maybe you could bundle some of the bigger pieces together and sell them to people who make 6-8 inch bears? It's hard to throw any scarpas away isn't it? There's always that nagging voice saying that you may just need a scrap of it some day...for ...something!
I fell in love with your desk too...I love antiques! And I would so love to have such a wonderful outlook with all that lovely natural light.
I am in the market for one of those wonderful floor Ott lamps...but they are hard to get in Australia. I have just discovered a supplier in Sydney and home to get a hold of some to sell on my website.

On the thread of messy homes and workstations...if you think we are all bad...check out this link. It's written by a dumbfounded daughter, about her mother's 'problem'. I'll never feel messy again!
http://www.auctions-registration.com/ebay/

Glad to hear it's not just my puter jacking up on the Edinburgh site. I have just emailed them to ask what's going on...I'm too attched to it to give it the flick! The error message says something about the data base being full...not surprised..we do talk ALOT!!!:D Seriously though:|...there is one heck of a lot of info stored in there somewhere...and there has to be a limit!
Sue Ann...Skipper is way cute! I love your teds..they have such a charm!:cool:

Hi Danni,
I know of all the people involved in the murder...and the lady who supposedly did the murdering has two sons the same age group as me so I do see them around from time to time, It's a very sad affair that....and the hardest part is, that we may never know what happened that night...and the poor boys may never have their mothers name cleared.
Of course the whole thing was dramatised for telly..but I found it all very unnerving.:(

No Sue Ann, It was in fact day time...it's just that some of the images show up better if you change them to black and white, which is what I did for yours and Chico. There are different satellites you can choose from too, and some give clearer pics. Since taking these pics, my 11 year old daughter was 'Wind surfing" and managed to find pics of Los Angeles airport that are so clear and close, you can not only see the planes on the ground, but you can see what kind of planes they are! We picked out a Virgin Blue and a Qantas...and there was one plane just taking off and you could see it's shadow on the runway! You could even see all the cars in the car park. I'd estimate this was from about 1 mile up. It does warp a bit if you go closer...but so clear it's scary! It's a shame it's not designed for Australia....the best shots we can get are similar to the one of Phillip Island.
Rita,I'm sorry your computer mucked up...how disappointing! Usually it's our computer that pulls those tricks.I'm sure my hubby sais it was only 180MB.
Laure, Phillip Island IS a lovely place to live....we have some of  Victoria's few North facing beaches which are calm and great for swimming, and on the other side of the Island, we have some of Australia's best surf beaches. My daughter has become quite the surfer this last summer...but now it's winter, the water isn't so inviting. Roll on summer! Because it's so beautiful here, the population swells from a permanent population of 5,000 to about 50,000 over the Christmas holidays...and then it's a not so nice place to be. I can see why the tourists come, but I wish they wouldn't! They take over the island and we have to go to the supermarket at 7am so we don't get squashed in the mob and line up for everything. We also have the Fairy Penguin Parade and seal colonies, which attracts many international tourists, and bus loads of Japanese tourists arrive on the Island every night of the year to go to see the penguins toddle up the beach to their burrows at dusk...they really are too cute!:cool:

Sorry I've taken so long to respond...busy day yesterday!
Well my post had the desired effect....and some of you have come out and said where I can look for you...so I have more people to visit!:D
Unfortunately the pics from the program aren't live...there's no way of telling how old they are, so there'll be no zooming in to check out your clothes lines to see what colour undies you all wear!!;)
Now to answer some questions...
Shelli..the program is 180MB which is why it takes so long to download...but there are faster broadband connections than what we have. One of the sample pics I have put up is Chico...but I have since found that there are umpteen Chico's in the USA...I was pretty sure you mentioned California..but if I'm wrong...forgive!
Jane...would love to know which program your hubby has. My hubby and son just love all this kinda stuff and I'm sure they'd love to check out yours too. The one I'm using is at http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/ It also has a built in encyclopaedia called Wikipaedia which has loads of info about the places you visit. You can make it so the pics show landmarks and place names and if you click on the landmark logos it gives all the info you could possibly want about the landmark. It's fantastic for school kids! It's so detailed though, it would be a bit of a worry in the hand of terrorists..scary!
Louise..I'm up for the challenge, and I'll guarantee I'll be able to find Tofield!
Dilu...roughly where in the Pacific Northwest are you??
I DID zoom in on Grant's Pass..where I think you mentioned for your get together.
Danni...I went to Canberra yesterday..and the big loop around parliment house and the red road up to the war museum really stood out..but Lake Burley Griffin looked like a pond! What is the huge water reservoir to the North East of Canberra??
Anyway..I have put a couple of pics on my site at the addresses below if you want to peek. I live on Phillip Island...which is way down the bottom right hand corner of Australia. You can't see the bridge which joins us to the mainland from the pic..but it's at the right hand side, where the isand is closest to the mainland, which you can see a bit of.

http://www.justusbears.com/Chico!.gif

http://www.justusbears.com/Double-Oak.gif

http://www.justusbears.com/Phillip-Island.gif

Hi girls,
I am having a blast with a new program I downloaded from the net called Worldwind. It allows you to see different parts of the world via satellite and the pics are amazingly clear! You just plug in where you want to go and it takes you there. You can go in quite close...about the height a jet would fly and you can even turn the pics sideways and they become 3D. So I have been visiting all you girls! So far I have visited Sue Ann in Double Oak, Shelli in Chico, and Millie in Frazeysburg....and tonight, I'm visisting Oregon to say hi to Winney! I took a screen shot of Double Oak and Chico and also one of Phillip Island where I live..so will see if I can upload them to my site and post them here so you can see. The pics in the USA are the clearest (I could see houses and driveways and trees in Double Oak!)because that's where the program is designed for, but I was still quite pleased with the detail in Australian pics too. My geography has improved ten fold since getting this program and now I know where heaps of places are in America whereas before..I was pretty clueless.:rolleyes: It's so great seeing where evryone comes from!
You really need broadband to be able to run the program and it DID takes 3 1/2 hours to download initially...but it's so fascinating!!:D

Maybe we need to start another group called 'Teddy Talk members Anonymous'...where people like us can go to discuss not being able to reisit sititng and chatting with our online friends?
It is hard to resist logging on....in case you miss something..and if you don't do it daily, you get too far behind. If I had a bear room it would be easier cos I could just pop in there for a few minutes at a time to work on my bears...but I'm having to set up on the kitchen table too...and my stuff is in too many different boxes, so by the time I get it all out, and pack it all up....time is running out! I would so love to be able to just leave everything set up and just walk out and shut the door when I've had enough....doesn't hurt to dream I guess.:rolleyes:

Thank you Kirsten! Yes, I did do it myself (well, with a bit of assisstance from hubby:P). I used the same program Shelli does...very complicated, and I really just learned by fiddling around. I was quite pleased with it..but it's not really 'me', so when I get some spare time (hey whut??) I'll make another.:rolleyes:

Kirsten,
You did a great job on Penny's avatar..clever cookie you are!!

Here is me and some of my bears...can't see much resemblence really!