Let's build some bears!

Okay, y'all, here are my attempts with the new Build-a-Bear products that I've purchased. We'll be making these at the Mommy & Me open house tomorrow.

First off, I made a set of boy and girl "bearthday" cards. (I did cheat... I colored them with Copics. I just don't do a good job at coloring with other markers! The kids will be using crayons or Crayola markers.) We'll use the stamps Beary Best Friends and Beary Nice Wishes, and I'll let the kids pick their stamps and colors. For my cards I paired the girl with bermuda bay DP (the color is off in the photo, sorry) and the boy with pumpkin pie DP from the BAB paper collection in the mini catalog. The layout is basically the most recent SCS sketch challenge, although I needed to add the sentiment.

Next, paper dolls. These were going to be magnetic, but unfortunately it didn't work out so I took myself back to my childhood with more traditional paper dolls. Oh my goodness, when I was a kid paper dolls were one of my most favorite things. I would get the paper doll sets at the store and then after I punched out all the premade clothes I would design my own. I think I still have some of them somewhere!

These were tricky enough that I plan to do a tutorial, but I won't get to that this weekend. For now I'll just highlight the basics. I cut out the bears with the cardboard backing from the DP packs and chocolate chip cardstock, then glued them together. For the clothes I used more cardboard and made templates for all the pieces - you can cut it with the Sizzlits, if you press down quite hard while you're putting it through the machine and then punch the die cut out very carefully. It's not super clean but it works. Then I traced around each template onto the BAB DP. I added little tabs as I outlined the pieces so I could fold them over the dolls. Since the DP pieces weren't die cut they didn't have the dashed accent lines so I drew them in with a chocolate chip marker.

I made my own template for the dolls' stands as well - more to come with the tutorial, I promise! For the faces I taped some black cardstock behind the eye, nose, and mouth openings, cut out a kraft piece for the muzzle and glued it on top of the base, and then cut the tiny mouth piece out of real red and glued it in place. I think they turned out cute! I'll let the kids pick what kind of bears they want to make and let them choose the clothing, colors, patterns, etc. I hope they have a great time. If Ben is any indication it's going to be a hit because I think he's really excited to make these tomorrow!