Vintage Children's Books- Molly Brett

from The Adventures of Plush and Tatty by Molly Brett, published by the Medici Society

What were your favourite books as a child? The Teddy Forest Library is beginning to amass a rather lovely collection of beautifully illustrated children's books. I find them quite inspiring when making bears and other crafts. Here are some pages from a recent thrift shop find, The Adventures of Plush and Tatty, by Molly Brett. I highly recommend googling Molly Brett's whimsical and charming illustrations.

Tatty has a boating mishap from The Adventures of Plush and Tatty by Molly Brett

disaster strikes the cookout from The Adventures of Plush and Tatty by Molly Brett

from The Adventures of Plush and Tatty by Molly Brett

What do you take inspiration from?

West Coast Creature Feature-The Somewhat Intimidating Sandhill Crane

Sandhill crane family, photographed by smallgirl

This month's West Coast Creature feature is the Sandhill Crane, a bird that I find a bit intimidating. The first time I saw one, it scared me because I rounded the corner on a local nature trail and BAM there it was, with its huge beak and yellow eyes. I wasn't expecting to see one and I'm rather petite, and it came up to at least my chest level. In my area, the resident sandhill cranes are known to be aggressive sometimes, which is understandable if nature nerds like me pop out of nowhere and surprise them. Anyways, the sandhill crane is beautiful, majestic, and can be found in wetlands all over North America, if you are lucky to spot one.

Happy birding!

DIY Craft-How to recycle a bus ticket into an artist trading card

One crow sorrow, by smallgirl

The bears and I have been fascinated by artist trading cards lately and made some today out of all those used bus tickets sitting in my purse. Artist trading cards, or ATCs are tiny 2 1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch works of art, traded by their makers with other makers, much like trading sports cards (does anyone do that anymore?).

What you need:
Scissors, Glue stick, Cardstock scraps, Ruler, Pen
Bus tickets
Paint, markers, sparkles, collage materials, etc for decorating

What to do:

1. Base coat your bus ticket with paint or colour it
2. ATCs must be 2.5 by 3.5 inches, so you will need to add a bit to your bus ticket.
3. Here's how: Cut some 2.5 and 3.5 inch strips from your cardstock

4. Glue the strips together to form either an "L" shape or a box shape. As long as you have cut with the right measurements, all you need to do is line up the corners of your strips. This is your frame.

5. Position your bus ticket over the frame until the edges are parallel and glue. You now have a card to work with.

6. Go wild! Create whatever cool images you want on your card and start trading.

Three crows a wedding, by smallgirl

Seven crows a secret, by smallgirl

Seven crows ATCs by smallgirl

Here, I've decorated a set of ATCs with the beautiful West Coast bird, the northwestern crow.
Let me know if you want to swap :)
Happy trading!
For more info on ATCs, go here: http://www.artist-trading-cards.ch/