Ellen Borggreve Design

Dreams of Dogs or Dream Dogs...?

What can I say? Caya loves her food....See that wagging tail??? She is a very hungry little doggy, she could eat all day long, even now that she is ill.

I just wanted to give you a link to the website of the breeders we chose to adopt a new puppy from...Just take a look at these little dogs...Ohhhh, those faces....Dedicated to...Tibetan Spaniels

I plan to have finished all orders on Monday, so please bear with me just a little longer. Boy, life has thrown some distracting things on my path lately, but not to worry...I am sewing bears again...

Calming Down

Or should I call this post ''bouncing back''??? My poor heart was beginning to feel the effects of all the stress that has been going in recently and I have had to take it a bit easy for 2 days, just to catch my breath, quite literally.

I should have called this post ''bouncing back'', because you know what I did yesterday? I visited my first dog show in 11 years....I watched the judging, made up my own mind about which dog should win and was delighted when things went the way I thought they would. I caught up with long lost friends, that I met in the main ring all the time when I was still showing my champion dog Cino. Almost all these friends are now judges which was so wonderful! Of course you can guess why I was there at that dog show, can't you...We are looking for a new puppy in the upcoming months. We had decided on the breed, but my husband had never seen these little dogs in real life. We will be getting a Tibetan Spaniel and they are absolutely gorgeous. It was wonderful to see them moving in the ring, to talk to their breeders and to fall in love again with a breed...These little dogs are full of personality, look so very proud and have perfect little faces...how I love them....They really made me happy yesterday, which was a first in weeks...

Caya will be getting our undivided attention though and she is so enjoying the summer weather, even though it makes her sneeze. She loves to be in the garden now and get a bit of sunshine on that gorgeous little face of hers. She needs extra food, now that she is loosing weight a bit, but she does not mind a bit, because food is a big passion of hers. She got her appetite back completely with the new combination of medication, so she is back to trying to snatch some of our food...

I'm still standing

This must have been one of the worst weeks ever.... I hate to sound negative, especially as I am the kind of girl that always looks at the bright side, but it has been awful...Of course the news about Caya hit me hard, then we had to have the bathroom floor completely re-tiled plus some of the walls. It had started to leak hard into our kitchen, which ruined the ceiling. We have been without shower for weeks as everything needed to dry (walls, floors, wood, beams...). Finally work started on Monday and on Tuesday the tap in the bathroom of course started to leak (60 litres per 15 minutes, not a small leak). We had to close off the main supply in the cellar (which was the original and ancient one of when this house was built), so you can guess what happened, right? It tore and so then we had two leaks. We had to call in the water company in the middle of the night and this man said he could not repair it unless we broke away the cellar staircase and so he left without having replaced the main supply tap...He had managed to close off the supply though, so we had no water until the staircase would be removed and the new main supply tap would be in place. I can tell you I was feeling extremely desperate at that point...crying that everything was leaking including Caya...Yesterday was spent again by waiting for repairmen to come. First the staircase was loosened, then the main supply was re-stored and then the plumber came to get a new tap in the bathroom in place. Phew, no leaks anymore...Now all that needs to be done after this is the restoring of the ceiling in the kitchen, which is not looking nice at all at the moment
It is a work of art, isn't it? These big holes were made so everything could get dry again. The bathroom should be watertight again, so hopefully this can be left in the past now and I hope I will soon be able to just consider this to be a great story to tell at birthdays...

Thanks for all your support during the last few days, it has meant so much to me. I am running behind on orders and shippings, but hope to start catching up again today. Caya is not doing too bad at the moment. She is sleeping most of the time, is really happy that I have decided she can sleep in the bedroom in her kennel and she is enjoying the sunny weather. She is a very brave and strong-willed little dog and she refuses to just accept things, which I really like in her. Her father was completely different, he gave up as soon as he felt ill and that was difficult to watch. This girl puts up a huge fight, it's just incredible. She so enjoys her little walks in the evening that she is screaming for joy when she hears my husbands car coming into the driveway. She knows we will then take her to the lake (by car). We did that all the time before she fell ill, but she was not allowed to do so anymore, because of her sinus problems. For months she has not been able to walk with us, just to protect her from getting ill. Now however I don't see the point of keeping her in, she should just enjoy life to the max now...

Oh so sad

I must have felt it coming by posting a picture of my girl Caya. She was diagnozed with cancer yesterday and we will loose her in one of the upcoming days. I ask all of you waiting for a bear to please be patient with me, as I need some time to get myself back together. I really can't talk much more about it, I am just so very upset. I will be working as much as possible, but have taken at least this weekend off to try to be with Caya as much as possible. I will get back to you as soon as I can.

My girl

This song came to mind after I saw this picture...This is of course me and ''my girl'' Caya. This look she gives me is why she has me working so hard to get her back to a better health. She is totally devoted to me and as you can see...I adore her too...who can resist a face like that?

An available bear!

This is Noisette, a 43 cm tall bear made of Schulte alpaca. He is available for immediate adoption. This again will be a first come, first served base to the first person who expresses the wish to adopt him.

Noisette has been adopted!

Marbles' little brother

Just finished...Marbles little brother which was made as a custom order. I have almost finished all orders and will not be taking on any new ones for the time being, sorry... I am now going to dedicate myself fully to new work for my new website schedule...Ahhh, and you know what? I have my voice back...big hurray!
Anyway...this is Marly...he is 31 cm tall and was made of hand-dyed alpaca which was an enormous task as it had to be the same colour as Marbles' colours, which was made of Schulte synthetics. I hope I succeeded. The dyeing alone took me an entire day. I am feeling a bit insecure if he will appeal to the kind person who ordered him...fingers crossed...

A touch of spring

For a few days we had wonderful spring weather. Now the rain is pouring down again...my poor tulips...
I love tulips (as long as they are in the garden, don't like to have them on a vase...) and I especially love this variety...

The picture below the tulip was also taken in the garden where flowers finally start to bloom....I hope we will soon have some sunshine again, so I can take more pictures in the garden. I can't wait for my many hibisusses to start blooming...I have a true passion for those shrubs, I am still hoping to add an orange one to my garden one day. I have almost every other variety already...

My new idea...finally

I will probably have to find another permanent spot to post this as well, but I just wanted to let you know that I have worked out the details for my new schedule. I have now proved to myself that I can work on a deadline, I have also proved to be able to be more productive than in the last years, so the time is right for me to announce this.

From now on I will have scheduled website updates. These dates will be fixed and so you will all know when to expect new bears. I'll explain what I had in mind. I will try to have 4 regular updates a year, or to be more precise...I'll have 4 regular releases per year at known dates and times. These releases will hopefully have 8 bears each.

There will also be special releases 4 times a year that will be special themed bears (Christmas, Halloween, Valentines and Easter). I will try to have 2 to 4 bears available in these special releases.

Then there will be surprise updates with the odd raccoon, koala, red panda or special bear in between, but they will not be scheduled. They will appear on my blog and they will be announced one or two days before I will present them to you.

Which will be the dates???
Here they come!
June 30th 2oo8, regular release of 8 bears
August 9th 2008 , regular release of 8 bears
October 11th 2008, Halloween release of 2 to 4 bears
November 8th 2008,  regular release of 8 bears
November 30th 2008, Christmas release of 2 to 4 bears

Every release will take place at 22.00 hours  Western European Time (21.00 hours UK)

I am sorry to say that none of these bears will be available for order after the release dates.

This system will work better for you as you know when to expect something and for me this will give me the chance to work on more new bears, work with themes and have more clearness in my schedule.

I will put up previews of the bears one or two days early so you can decide which bear you would like best, but at those times I will not be taking pre-orders for the bears. The bears will start selling at the exact times that I mentioned. This will just keep the stress down for you, so you don't have to rush through the bears and back again at the mentioned time and can't make up your mind in those few minutes and then miss out on a bear. I hope you will all be as happy with this schedule as I am. I am quite excited and can't wait to finish all my ordered bears to start on the June release.

Quiet days...

I lost my voice...!!!! The only way I can now say ''aaaaarggghhhh'' is just like I do it now:type it. Yesterday morning I woke up to quickly realize that my soundsystem was not working. I had had a cold earlier last week, but it was much better. Anyway, the volume is still down, I can't do more than whisper, which I try to do all day, because I really am a big fan of talking. My husband is quite pleased I think, Caya does nothing than keeping her head tilted when I try to tell her what to do...She is trying to find out just what sort of a silly game I have thought of now...;o))