Ellen Borggreve Design

Just Gilmore Girls for me...

and Cash in the Attic, Bargain Hunt, Put your Money and so on and so on. I am watching all  day-television I can take in now that I have been sick for a while. All my joints are hurting, so I can't work on my 13 bears that are looking so promising. So for now, I'll have to make the best of it having breakfast with Gilmore Girls, lunch with Tim Wonnacott and dinner with a nice comedy.
Caya is getting a bit better and is loving the fact I have a bad cold. She loves paper handkerchiefs and my house is covered in little shreds of paper. She herself is covered in those little shreds of paper as well, whilst look quite innocently like she would not know who would have made such a mess of the house.
The only time I am spending in my studio at the moment is at night, because I don't want to keep poor hubby awake with my coughing, so I am attempting to sleep in the studio.
I don't know about you, but when I was young, my mum always looked at my eyes to make out if I really was ill. When I was falling ill one of my eyes would turn smaller and if that did not happen I was sent right back to school. Hubby came home last night and said I had two small eyes this time, so I did not have to go to school today...hahahaha In fact, I think I can play ghost tomorrow without having to change a thing about my appearance...
Anyway, I'll make myself a nice hot cup of tea called Pickwick Earth, which tastes wonderful and will no doubt make me feel much better again. I'll be back on my feet before you know it. I am taking in loads of vitamin pills and with Gilmore Girls on the television, I should be feeling completely fit again really soon!

The trip to the vet

I thought at least some of you would be interested in how things went for Caya this morning...
Well....I had to get up very early this morning (which is not me!), because the appointment at the vet was at 8.30 a.m so she would be in before all other animals with illnesses that could infect her would arrive. It's usually a 20 minute drive, but there is always such a bad congestion on the motorway, that I left home at 7.45 am (ouch...). I had not even driven the road across the dyke entirely, before I ended up in congestion. Now, I live in the country, pastures everywhere, just one main road to get from here to another place in The Netherlands and on this country road I ended up in a congestion with my hubby one car before me...He opened his window to indicate I should drive along the river instead and try to get to the motorway by driving right through the rural areas...Oh bother....I don't like driving there at all. I have not had my license for more than three years and am still a bit apprehensive at times. Well then, 30 minutes later I was finally on the right road to the motorway and ended up in the second congestion and after another 15 minutes I finally made it to the motorway and ended up in...yes, you guessed it, I am not even going to bother to type it down again....Grmbl....and all of this before I normally even have my eyes wide open...
After well over an hour I arrived at the vet and Caya's ears were checked. Aha, that's why she is deaf, one enormous lump of wax in each ear and an infection because of it. She was climbing into my shawl to prevent the vet from looking, but in the end we could finally go home with another course of antibiotics (yay....I should start a pharmacy). Hopefully the wax will come out now. Usually the vet would rinse the ears in a situation like this, but Caya is in no state to be sedated, so we just have to hope she will soon hear again. It's a bit difficult to make her listen to arm gestures... :o)
Amor, her granddad, was as deaf as he could possibly be in the last year of his life and we taught him to ''listen'' to arm gestures, which worked just as well as when he could still hear our voices. He never listened to a word we said anyway, so nothing much changed, but he did understand perfectly what we meant by each wave. We know that, because he did exactly the opposite, which was just what he did when he could still hear....
Anyway, Caya is fine and I am happy to be a bear artist instead of having to drive to an office every day and get stuck in traffic all the time. I count my blessings that I can do what I love to do and that I don't have to get up at 6.30 every morning...yay...life is good!

Hiding?

After getting several phonecalls from people wanting to know if I am still around and also getting e-mails from worried bear artist friends asking me if I was hiding out somewhere, I started asking myself if I was...hiding, that is...
I am always hiding a bit actually. I like something crunchy in the morning, but I certainly don't want to hear about anything crunchy on the news. Most of you know that I dislike the news and newspapers with a passion. That passion has grown in the last few months, I can tell you.
I am the kind of girl that really likes to look at the bright side, I like to see my cups half filled and never half empty. Ha, I like to see just beautiful cups actually....
Have I shown you my beautiful Denby Blue Jetty Stoneware???

Anyway, sometimes it is a bit more difficult to keep thinking this way and then I am left with the choice to see my cup half empty or just hide away and pretend I am fine. Because I do like half full and full cups, I always opt for the latter and try to throw myself into a new or forgotten hobby until I really do feel happy again. I don't like to be thrown into the dark places life sometimes has in store for you, so I just put my head under the covers and wait for the storm to be over.
It feels like I have been hiding for almost a year now. I know what has been causing it of course....I have had way too many things to deal with this last year, but you know what...?I would not have been happy if I had not been hiding. I am starting to feel calmer now and am ready to be more out there again. I'll be back with all of you shortly. I'll be reading and commenting on your blogs, I will be admiring your work, I'll be posting here more often, because after a while a den where you can hide can start to look pretty boring...lol  My poor friends have not seen much of me at all this year and boy...am I lucky to have such wonderful and especially patient friends. I must have a special talent hunting down the most patient friends on this planet, because I certainly have made them wait for me...
Have I shown you this handmade vase I got from two of my best friends that I'll call J&J for short...?

I am still working hard and sometimes not so hard on my new bears. I have several on my desk that I am super excited about and yes....I have a small raccoon there for the first time in 2 years. I plan to have him on EBay later this month. Big yay!

I am slightly worried about the veterinary appointment for Caya tomorrow though. She has not been to the vet's in 6 months as she has such a weak immunesystem and is best off at home. I'll have to go tomorrow before surgery, because the poor girl went deaf in a few days time. It will be her first check-up since we heard she had a few days to live in May. It has been quite a few days though :o)

One of the worlds, in which I have been hiding, is of course the BJD world...I have been making some dresses for the girls, but I have to admit that I'd better not give up my day job...hahaha...They take forever, because I am such a perfectionist. And I am nowhere as good as I want to be, which makes me quite determined to get better quickly and voila...a new obsession is born...Wasn't this supposed to be a relaxing hobby away from the bears Ellen?
I got two new wigs from Hong Kong yesterday for my lati girls, but I was really lucky, because they fitted my Jaime girls like a glove. That is a big surprise as these Jaime dolls have head sizes, that make it very hard to buy nice wigs for. My Jaime Elf Tiffany looks great in it:

The dress and hat in the picture are by Shazdolls from Belgium. Shaz and her mom are such tiny clothes wizards, it's really beyond belief. You can find out more about Shaz in her Etsy shop:
Shazdolls at Etsy
The wig is by Rubyredgalleria in Hong Kong
Little Tiffany is a sold out limited edition elf by Jaimedoll in South Korea

Etsy is worth paying  a visit to at any time actually. The amount of wonderful and handmade things on show there is so amazing. It's a pure treasure cove and I love it!

Well, I hope I have all re-assured you....I am absolutely fine and have just been enjoying some other hobbies for a while to keep my mind from drifting off to worries that I really did not want to loose energy over. I have been on clouds above because of my new macro lens, which has made me such a happy girl. How can a piece of expensive glass make a gal this happy? It has made all the difference in my studio photography, I am so impressed with the results, but it has been hard not to have my face permanently stuck to the camera, I really loose track of time and everything else when I look through the lens of a camera. That reminds me....I have to get some sewing done today! See you later!

Just finished...

This 31 cm cutie... I really, really like this bear, I have to admit. The colours look so scrumptious and that's why I named the little guy Mocchaccino.
This bear really is one of the first this year to really tug at my heartstrings...

His face...

Good news about the website as well. After many hours of work last weekend we finally found out what the problem was that caused us being unable to upload anything. It will now get a complete facelift in the next few weeks hopefully. I have been hard at work on the backgrounds and new buttons already. The thing is I have grown so very fond of my blog that I hardly ever feel the urge to do something to my website....
Please share your thoughts about blog versus website with me if you have a moment.

What is it with these boy bears???

Has it really been 10 days since I last typed a piece in my blog??? Aaaarghhh, time IS flying by. Can I just try to defend my non-blogging please? I have actually been quite busy. I have 11 new bears on my desk, am preparing a workshop that I will teach in the UK next year (yeah, my first and I am so excited!!!) and in the rest of the non existant time I try to do my best to take the best care of Caya. Spare time??? I am wondering what that must feel like, but I have been designing clothes for my bjd ladies and have sewn my first everpiece of clothing. It's a bit of a sorry excuse for a dress, it is so far from perfect, but the next one will be better hopefully...

This is Jaime Elf Tiffany

Anyway, back to the title of this post....When I sat at my desk sewing this afternoon I was wondering why I could never make a girl bear? Why is it that a bear never comes out and cries out for a name like Isabella? Why are they always boys and then another thing...why do they always look so young? Ten years ago I gave it a try to make adult looking bears, but failed horribly and so I have since that time hung on to the thought that I should just build on what is naturally there, but wouldn't it be nice to have a girly bear just once???
Some of the true boy bear of the last years...
Gin Gin

Lumiere

Canby and Carney

Ciprino

Lugano

Macchiato

Noisette, a personal favourite of mine

Adorado, the raccoon

Wait....I found two more girly bears after all. Is it just the colours that makes them look more feminine though?
Bluebell

Venezia