One year of Blazer Bear

Posted on April 7, 2013 By Blazer Bear

Following on from a successful first year of trading we began the New Year brimming with ideas how to move Blazer Bear forwards.

First on our list was to re-launch our website and invest in some professional photography.

So Welcome to our new website! With the wonderful help from Paul at Redboat Design www.redboatdesign.com and Roddy and Gavin at Roddy Paine studios www.roddypaine.co.uk we are now up and running. Please do look through our Gallery to get a feel of some of the Bears we have made. Please note that we have kept some of our own photography in the gallery as we hope you will appreciate, once we make a bear it goes back to its owner – and some of the Bears featured have been our favourites. Moving forward we aim for our gallery to consist of all studio shots.

Despite all the excitement of getting the new site up and running life at Blazer Bear has carried on.

The year began with some really interesting orders. Out of a beloved father and grandfathers’ ties and Cravats we produced a very memorable bear. To make him look even smarter we made him a waistcoat out of what was the most precious tie.
Flying all the way from Australia we received a blazer and uniform from a Mother whose daughter went to Corrowa School in Melbourne in the 1970s. The Blazer Bear was for her daughters 40th birthday. The Blazer being a very smart light plaid we added the summer dress fabric to the paws and ears, resulting in a very attractive Bear.

Another exciting order has also been completed – a lovely Bridesmaid dress is now a Blazer Bear. We were given a beautiful but simple cream satin damask dress worn by a 3 year old. As always we try to capture the character of the given garment so with this dress we transferred the piping on the yoke to travel down the Bears’ middle. Continuing with this theme we included the bow and the buttons on Blazer Bears’ back to reflect how it was on the dress. Some of this satin ribbon also became the ears and paws.

This was our very first ‘Bridesmaid Blazer Bear’ which was quite extraordinary given just a couple of weeks previously we made our first ‘Mother of the Bride Blazer Bear’! Made out of an exquisite silk brocade jacket that was worn to a wedding 20 years ago, the bear was made for a special Mothers Day present..

Aside from all the exciting and lovely Bears we have made, we have also received a lovely product review from a group of first time Mums who call themselves ‘Slummy Mummies’. Slummy Mummies are based in Witney, near Oxford and amongst other things, review products. Following them on twitter we responded to their quest to review follower’s products. In line with the group being mothers of babies/ young children we sent an example of a ‘Babygro Bear’; this one made from 3 babygrows aged 0-3 months. However, to show how we began an original Blazer Bear was also sent. We were delighted to be granted the ‘Slummie Mummie seal of approval’ and were very touched by their kind words. The full review can be seen at www.slummy-mummie.co.uk Thank you Slummy Mummies!!

In mid March we loaded the car up full of Bears and made our way around the M25 to St Nicholas’ school in Fleet Hampshire. A market atmosphere was created in their hall as people browsed the stalls whilst sipping champagne and eating canapés before the students’ fabulous fashion show began at 8.30. The girls did a marvellous job and everyone was very friendly and welcoming.

For us the hero of the evening was our ‘St Nicholas Blazer Bear’ which was pre-ordered and took pride of place on our display. He certainly got a lot of attention and we were delighted with the interest and encouragement from everyone passing our stall.

We are very much looking forward to our week ahead – not only making Bears, but we are very excited to be attending ‘Hand Made with Love’ at the Trinity Arts Centre in Tunbridge Wells, this Saturday 13th April. Full of lovely crafty stuff we would love to see you there – come and meet our Bears!

Have a lovely week

Pru and Kathy