UDI Inspiration Challenge #83

When I first opened the inspiration photo file from our challenge Mom, Maria, the children's song "Teddy Bear Picnic" started running through my head. And I wanted to run screaming out of the room! :) You see, when Emma was a baby, we had one of those musical red/black/white toys strung across her stroller to 'entertain' her while she sat waiting patiently for us to finish whatever we were doing. Well, the center toy was a teddy bear head and when she pressed the nose, it played that song. Let's just say that she pressed that button a lot!
Well, she's still pressing our buttons, but we love her anyway! And, I didn't run from the song or the photo this week and REALLY had fun creating my project!

Here is the inspiration photo:

And here is my interpretation of it:

It was so cool to see this idea in my head really come together - as I got closer to finishing, I was doing the happy dance that it was all coming together! :)

I started with the basket because if I couldn't get that to work, then I knew I'd need to punt! It's created with two pieces of 8 1/2" x 11" Creamy Caramel cardstock plus three strips cut from a 12" x 12" piece. I did weave this flat, but I'm already planning to try another one but round this time. I used to sell baskets for another company (13 years!) and I tried to create this one similar to what I remember the weavers doing at that company. The top bands and handle are secured with Silver Brads.

The Daisies were all cut with my Big Shot and the Daisies Die. I just layered all three pieces and used my Bone Folder to curl the tips. The Summer Sun Corduroy Brad completes the center.

I used Garden Green strips of cardstock for the flower stems 1" wide and folded to 1/2" for strength. I used Sticky Strip for all the adhesive on this project.

I've always had a thing for jointed teddy bears - there is quite the collection of Boyd's Bears in my home - so I thought it would be fun to take our wonderful Build-A-Bear Big Shot dies and see if I could make them work as jointed bears.
I used Close to Cocoa cardstock and sponged all the pieces with the same ink color.
More Silver Brads and some Real Red Gingham Ribbon with a little black cardstock behind the faces completed them. It was actually pretty easy to create these! Hey, I actually "built-a-bear"! :)

For the finishing touch, I cut a piece of 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" Whisper White cardstock and using a template made of cardstock, sponged Real Red ink on it to make the picnic cloth.
So, no stamping on this project at all, but tons of fun! Start to finish, it took me about 3 hours, but now that I know what I'm doing, it would be a lot faster to recreate.

I'd love to know what you think of this little project - and be sure to check out the other inspiration projects over at the UDI Blog. I know they will be fabulous!
Have a great day everyone!
~~Robin