Bart Bear's Blog

Gosh, it has been a month since the last post and what a month it has been. Here in Australia we are in self-isolation due to the virus which is causing disaster all over the world. So far our extended family is safe and staying home as much as possible. We are keeping "cabin fever" at bay thanks to our hobbies, DVD library and "wine cellar". Mum and I have been creating cards and learning new techniques. Backgrounds like the one for the butterfly have been spectacular and Dad has taken one that he classes as art and he won't let me add anything else to it. The book cover with all the added things on it is our first attempt at mixed-media journals. I think it is a great first attempt and so do Mum's craft club ladies who have seen it on FB. Meanwhile Dad has been busy with card and plastic kits making castles and ships. This is one of the castles he makes and gives to neighbour kids. The ships are what he calls "isolation jobs" completed since home isolation was imposed. The paint jobs are his first attempts at painting the camouflage patterns the ships wore at particular dates, rather than the various shades of grey they were at some stages of their service.
I hope that all of my readers are coping with this horrible time and have hobbies to help them cope with "cabin fever".

Labels: boats, Canberra, cards, castle, craft

Mum and I found a really superb craft shop while we were in Tasmania. It is Bev's Cross Crafts in Spreyton, a little town near Devonport. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but inside it is full of the sort of stuff that card-makers like us drool over. Literally a couple of acres of card, stencils, dies, stamps, paints, tools, magazines, everything our craft room needs (except space). When we parked the car Mum told Dad that we would only be there for about half an hour; we were actually there for more like 2 hours and only left then because we had a long drive ahead of us. The luggage was significantly heavier on the flight home.

Labels: craft, Tasmania

You sometimes have a surprise waiting when you get back to your cabin after dinner. Strange creatures may be waiting. Here are three examples from our cruise on "Radiance of the Seas"; a bunny, some sort of funny monkey, and a turtle. These critters are all made by the stateroom steward. He folds the towels and face-washers for the next day into sometimes odd shapes. I wish that I could do this and, the next cruise that I am on, I will go along to the talk and demonstration on towel art that is usually given at least once during a cruise. The problem so far is that the demos have always clashed with the astronomy talks that Dad gives. Next time he can give them without my help and I will learn the arcane art of towel origami.

Labels: boats, craft, cruising

Today is Australia Day. Every year we try to get into the spirit of things by wearing something that says "We are very proud to be Aussies". This year we have gone for the minimalist approach and used stickers to give the message. We didn't do as much as other years. We just had a quiet day doing craft, watching cricket and going down to our favourite spot to watch the fireworks. The shores of the lake are packed with people during the Aus Day events, so we watch the fireworks away from the crowd. Of course, it is India's special day as well and at the moment I am watching a cricket match between Australia and India. Now those of you who are cricket tragics like me will recognise that the photo is not of this game, but a Big Bash game from a few days ago. All cricket is great, and it will be even better if Australia wins the game tonight.
p.s. Drat! The game had to be abandoned due to rain. We really need more  sports stadiums with movable roofs in Aus.

Labels: Canberra, craft, cricket, family

Sorry about the delay between postings. Mum is battling a ruptured disc and Dad is in the middle of cancer treatment, so this small bear is very busy being "Man of the house". Mum and I have managed to get a bit of time to explore new craft techniques. Last week we had our first go at using Gelli plates. When Mum first mentioned this I thought it was something that would go well with fruit and ice-cream, but it is actually a way of making background patterns for cards. It uses a lot of paint and naturally the mix of paint, roller and small bear can only result in two things - great patterns and a blotchy bear. I enjoy using this technique, but am not too happy about the bath that inevitably follows. Click on the image and you will see why a bath followed this experiment.

Labels: Canberra, craft

On Wednesday we went for a drive down to Bateman's Bay and Mogo. Mogo is an old gold mining town, but the gold was all found by the late 1800s and it is now a heritage market village. It also has a great zoo. Mum and I have a favourite shop at Mogo. It is called Amanda's and it is the best craft shop we have ever found. It is hard to move in the shop because it is absolutely crammed full of everything that you could ever need if you are into beading, card making, scrap booking, stamping or art. Do call in there if you are driving through the village on your way south of Bateman's Bay on the Princes Highway. It is actually handy to have a small bear with you when you are there. We can climb up to the top shelves and get things that would need a ladder otherwise. I love shops like this one, particularly when the shop lady is as nice and helpful as the one we met on Wednesday.

Labels: Bateman's Bay, beads, climbing, craft, New South Wales, south coast

Last Monday we decided to go for a drive down to Mogo Zoo. Mogo is an old gold mining town just south of Bateman's Bay on the south coast. It is only a 2-hour drive from home. The town is full of interesting shops, including one of the best craft shops Mum and I have found so far. The best thing there is the zoo. It is a small zoo that specializes in breeding endangered species of animals. They have most of the usual stuff like tigers and giraffes, but they also have a breeding pride of white lions and families of rare monkeys. These little guys are my favourites. They are pygmy marmosets and their natural habitat is the tropical forests of South America. The family of marmosets at Mogo have had lots of babies that have been sent to other zoos, so although the forests are being destroyed in lots of places the marmosets will survive. They are very curious little guys and always come to the front of their cage to chatter away at me when I sit near the cage window. Actually, their cage is quite big for such small critters and it has heaters in it to keep the temperature in there more tropical. Monday was a very cold day and the marmosets were at lot warmer than us visitors. Do visit Mogo Zoo if you are traveling in southern New South Wales. You will see lots of cute critters and help save them from extinction.

Labels: animals, craft, New South Wales, south coast, zoo

Mum and I have been really busy lately. With Christmas nearly here there are lots of things to do. There are cards to make and post, bead thingies to make for presents for friends, and of course there is always housework to make the place look good for Santa. Here I am, helping sort out the bits and pieces of a shopping trip. There are card, ribbon, stamps, ink and punches to make special cards with, and strings of beads to be sorted out and divided up into project piles. Honest, I don't know how Mum would manage without the help of a small bear.

Labels: beads, Christmas, craft, Santa

Mum has this little pink bin that she uses to keep some of our craft materials in. I sometimes use it to play at being a grouch. I guess everybody knows what a grouch is. I learned about them from watching "Sesame Street" on TV. The grouch there, Oscar, is a fun character and reminds me of Dad. Except that Dad would find it hard to find a bin big enough to fit into. The big difference between Oscar and me is that Oscar's bin (being American, he calls it a trash can) is full of rubbish and grunge, and mine (OK, Mum's) has to stay clean. If I ever let it get like Oscar's, Mum would go ballistic and stop me from playing in it.

Labels: craft, TV

No doubt about Mum. She is always learning new things, and most of them are fun. Last weekend she started to learn how to make things from glass. There is this place called Canberra Glassworks in a big building that used to be the power station for Canberra. Now it is full of workshops, furnaces, ovens and all the sorts of tools that glassworkers need. You can go along and sign up for classes and actually make things. Mum started out by making a paperweight. She had to get a big blob of melted glass out of a furnace onto the end of a pipe, then roll it in coloured glass powder, heat it all up again so that the colours melted into the blob and stir and twist the colours with grabby things. Then, with some help from the teacher, she blew through the pipe and rolled the coloured blob around in a shaper until it was round, cut the round thing off and sat it in another small blob of melted glass. Then it had to go into a special oven and cool down really slowly. We picked the paperweight up yesterday. It looks great. With the clear top and insides, the blue hazy outsides, and the yellow streaky bits, it is a bit like a tiny frozen aquarium. I like it a lot and will keep all of my special papers under it. After all, Mum must have made it for me, don't you reckon?

Labels: Canberra, craft

Mum and I went to a craft show yesterday. We took Dad along because we needed a camel to carry the things we thought we might buy. There were lots of interesting things there, some of the quilts were real masterpieces. I don't have the patience to do quilting, but I sure like helping Mum do things with beads. There were lots of bead stalls and they had really great specials, so our camel ended up really loaded down. Dads do come in handy sometimes. When we got home the fun of unpacking began. The trouble with buying lots of beads is that they have to be sorted and stored. Here is where a small bear is really useful. First step, take the beads off the long strings they come on. This usually means that some of them escape and go skittering across the table and roll along the floor into hidey holes. My job is to catch them before they hit the floor. Mum, with help from me, then sorts them into piles of sizes and colours and I pack them away in containers. The camel then carries the containers upstairs to Mum's craft room, ready for us to turn into all sorts of pretty things. I like beading, it's great fun.

Labels: beads, Canberra, craft

Guess what. Mum is teaching me to make my own jewellery. Maybe she figures that will stop me digging around in her jewellery drawer. A result of my Tiffany's heist maybe? Anyhow, here I am (in the top picture) surrounded by the essential tools of the trade, listening to Mum explain what to do. I have a collection of different sorts of beads, special wire and string, and at least three sorts of pliers and cutters. We have Dad around somewhere to do the tough bits like cutting hard wire, tightening up the crimps and doing the superglueing (we laugh a lot when things stick to his fingers instead of where they are supposed to). The bottom picture was taken a couple of hours later. You can see the spectacular bookmark we have made. And there a couple of special sparkly bits of dichroic glass ready for our next effort. This beading thing is lots of fun.
Why is the small bear different colours in the two photos? Well, the top one was taken with flash and the bottom one with no flash, just the light coming through the window. Bear fur looks different colours depending on the way light hits it, so I can be any sort of brownish colour, just check the other posts.

Labels: beads, craft

Mum and I have been making shabtis. Shabtis are important things because they save you having to do any work at all in the afterlife, or so the ancient Egyptians say. The idea is that you make lots of little models of yourself and take them into your tomb with you. Then when the Gods call for you to help out with any of the big projects that Gods are so keen on, you send your shabtis to do the work and you stay comfortably in your hammock drinking beer and eating ice-cream. That sounds like a great idea to me. We are making our shabtis out of some goo called "Sculpey". This is like thick mud that you press and cut into shape, then cook in the oven and it comes out hard like rock. And the best thing is that shabtis don't have to look exactly like their owner. I am glad about that because these first attempts are not exactly like Mum and me.

Labels: craft, Egypt

I have just learned something interesting about paint. It can get into lots more places than you intend it to! Mum was painting this box thing and I was trying to help. I also wanted to show my new friend Tiko the pufferfish how paint worked. Mum had to leave the job for a bit to answer the phone, so there was my chance. By the time she got back I had finished the painting and had the brush ready for cleaning. Mum went ballistic! I can't really see why. Sure the paint dribbled a bit, but it was acrylic and washes off in water provided you don't let it dry first. Anyhow, I think I look good in blue camouflage. Dad has been a bit harsh with me. He says if I ever do this with his oil paint it will be a turps bath for me, and that stuff stings if it gets into your eyes and nether regions.

Labels: craft, trouble