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Delighted you like this little group of bears ... thank you for the lovely comments! 
Yes, it's time for the Guild's fifth 'Special Showcase' of 2013! Packed full of creativity and quality ... a treat for anyone with a keen eye for teddy bear artistry.
Please come along and watch our slideshow at www.masterbearcrafters.ning.com to see some of the very best bears created during the past month or so! 
A new order for the lovely 'Bears on the Square' shop ... they will be arriving in store tomorrow
Introducing Benjamin (back) Duncan (blue) and Elmer (gold) .. they are 11" and 8" bears.
Thanks Sue Ann x
I agree, nothing like a good 'ol traditional ted, gotta love 'em!
We're 'Touching Tradition' on the Guild this week with a wonderful showcase bursting with beautiful traditional style teddy bears!
Please visit us at www.masterbearcrafters.ning.com to enjoy this very special slideshow!
Glad the slideshow captured your imaginations!
Peter, I promise just for you, I will put together a traditional teddy bear show in the coming weeks, lol!
Such an expressive face! Super work!
Thank you all very much! I am so pleased to hear my little ones are appreciated as well as my big 'uns! 
It's 'Fun with Fantasy' week on the Guild and for those of you with a whimsical imagination, this will be a real treat! Our talented bearcrafters have stretched the boundaries of teddy bear design into a magical world where fairies really do exist! Please visit www.masterbearcrafters.ning.com to enjoy our new slideshow!
This little fellow was made for the 'One More Bear' shop in England recently ... I think he's a sweetie, I hope you do too!
It's pretty straight forward to do your own self-assessment if you are only dealing with one income ie., your bear business ... but you do need to be organised. Keep all your receipts and invoices, then file them carefully as you receive them ... I use a ring binder folder with 12 plastic wallets (one for each month of the year) and pop them in whenever I receive one. You need to get into the habit of filing your paperwork and you also need a means of recording your income and tax deductable outgoings to make the job easier for yourself when Tax Return time comes calling. These days I use a spreadsheet which totals my income and expenditure each week, month and summarises the final figures in an annual summary, but when I was starting out, I used the 'Tax Tracker' book sold by WH Smith and found that very handy. When it comes to actually filing your Tax Return, as long as you have registered for online filing, you simply enter the figures requested by the Inland Revenue website by the 31st January each year and your tax is then calculated for you.
So long as you are strict with yourself and stay organised, it's not a difficult job at all, just laborious! :P
Incidentally, it's not usually a problem to open a business account with a bank - I think it makes it much easier to put all your business transactions through a business account, rather than have to sift through your personal account to identify business transactions. When I opened my account years ago they offered something like a year's free banking for new businesses ... there are probably similar offers available today if you shop around. Once you have a business bank account, if you qualify for it, they will often offer a business credit card of some description too, which can be very useful ... I put as much of my business expenditure as possible on my business card and it is repaid in full each month by direct debit, which makes it very useful for keeping track of everything business related. I pay an annual fee for the card, but it's not too expensive and worth every penny for the convenience!
If you haven't already, we'd love you to check out our new Guild blog and add it to your regular blog reading lists ... www.masterbearcrafters.blogspot.com
This week we are featuring our 'Dolls Too!' group as we discovered many of our bearcrafters have hidden talents worth shouting about, so gave them their very own corner of the Guild to express their creativity in doll form!
We will be featuring many more topics, artist profiles and teddy bear themes as time moves on, so please pop back regularly! Last week Germany's Susan Donaj from 'The Wild Things' shared her thoughts together with her beautiful bears on our blog and on Friday, we are delighted to be introducing Australia's Kim Russell and her fabulous 'Russell Bears' ... we hope you enjoy the read
Just out of interest, does anyone use the spring loaded Fiskars scissors?
Definitely use a separate pair for scissor sculpting and keep that pair just for scissor sculpting ... I prefer to use embroidery scissors for this purpose. I have used Fiskars dress making scissors for donkeys years to cut out mohair (I like their left handed scissors) but have found they blunt if used on polyester wadding for example, so don't do that these days and just keep my dress making scissors for cutting out mohair ... heaven help anyone who 'borrows' them for any other purpose! A good pair of dress-making scissors should last years.
Our latest showcase is so much fun ... we're not all about bears on the Guild, other animals and dolls are welcome to! This week we invite you to our 'Hop and a skip' slideshow presentation ... featuring bunnies galore! :rose:
www.masterbearcrafters.ning.com
By the way, have you checked out our Guild blog yet? It features some exceptionally talented bearcrafters ... www.masterbearcrafters.blogspot.com
Glad you enjoyed the slideshow Peter and yes, Daisy definitely earned her place!
As it's the last week of April, we are running our fourth 'Special Showcase' on the Guild ... each creation has been carefully selected to represent the broad range of unique talent among our members. To see bear artistry at its best, please spare a few minutes to visit www.masterbearcrafters.ning.com this week! You won't be disappointed! 
Sorry guys, I think you just missed the boys slideshow, we change the slideshow every Friday so instead you found our fourth 'Special Showcase' bursting with a range of outstanding designs of all sizes, shapes and styles! I have put some lovely examples from the boys' slideshow on the Guild blog, so all is not lost if you would like to see them ... http://masterbearcrafters.blogspot.co.u … -boys.html
Peter, thanks for pointing out the mags, I will add and delete as you suggest
I've always been a jeans and trainers kinda girl, so I guess it was inevitable that one day my favourite jeans would evolve into a teddy bear!
This is 'Levi Red', a unique 18" bear ... he may be hairless, but he's really rather stylish don't you think?!
If you would like to find out more, Levi Red has just been made available for adoption direct from my website: allbear.co.uk
Boy bears doing boy bear stuff ... a fun new slideshow presentation awaits you on The Guild of Master Bearcrafters!
You are cordially invited to visit www.masterbearcrafters.ning.com to enjoy our heart warming gathering of teddy bear boys at play.
Thanks Sue Ann, so glad you like the Guild Blog! I hope to keep it regularly updated ... with all the talent there is on the Guild, I won't be in short supply of material that's for sure!
Glad you enjoyed them! Who would have thought pandas could get so creative eh?!
More new blog posts on the Guild blog and almost 2000 hits in the first couple of weeks! Have you popped over for a catch up this week? If not, we hope you will visit www.masterbearcrafters.blogspot.com and add it to your regular reading list! Thank you!
It's pandamonium on the Guild this week! Yes, we have a wonderful selection of traditional black and white panda bears, but this is the Guild of MASTER Bearcrafters, so of course, there are many other creative interpretations for your enjoyment too!
Please visit www.masterbearcrafters.ning.com to watch our slideshow presentation this week, you know you want to, lol!
