Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Definitely no stopping me now.... now that I've assembled one and know how it all works, I feel a lot more confident and looking forward to making many many more, although I have heaps and heaps more to learn.  I was NEVER a creative person at all, until about 6 months ago when I just woke up and thought I wanted a sewing machine (although my bunny is handstitched, looked way too hard to get that slippery alpacca fur in the machine ).  I've started sewing bags etc. and my teddy bear journey all started with this little girl, when I saw her on Etsy. 
http://www.bearpile.com/item/114131
I fell in love with her, bought her... then bought another bear I found on Bear Pile and decided I wanted to make my own.

Thank you everyone so much for your kind words and all your help.  It's all been very helpful and I'll take it all on board.  I managed to rescue my bunny's eyes but trying to wash most of the "brusing" off so will start again, AFTER doing lots and lots of testing on scrap fabric first.
Thank you Renee for your tips... your bear is fantastic, I love your shading!!! 
I'm off to my local bear store this weekend for more supplies and can't wait to get into more.

Thank you SO much for those links, I'll check them out and thank you for the tips on acrylic vs real fur too with color.  I'll make a point of practising heaps with scrap fabric before I go and "bruise" my teddy's eyes.   Much appreciated!

Hi Becky,

Thank you!  I used alpacca fur.  I'll have a look in that section, much appreciated.

I look forward to being a part of the forums, and hope to one day make bears as cute as all you people with gorgeous ones as your profile pictures.

Hi,
I've just finished my very first teddy bunny using a tutorial I purchased off Etsy, after discovering the awesome world of artist teddy bears about 6 months ago.  What a steep learning curve, I just did it slowly over a few weeks and had a few little stumbles due to language issues (pattern had been translated to English) but she had lots of photos which helped, so overall it was a pretty good DIY teach yourself project.  Anyhow I finally got brave enough to shade the eyes last night, but I used a Faber Castell Pitt Pastel pencil which I think was raw umber.  It didn't work so well on the pink fur and my bunny looks like she has bruised eyes (looks a yellowy/green colour), so I suspect I either did it wrong or the color was wrong for the fur.  Any tips???   Anyhow here's a photo of my almost finished project prior to bruising the eyes.

My first teddy making project