STBL Nursery Outing! A fun day with Bears and Orchids!

Wayne's friend, Melvin, specialises in Orchids. Melvin and his dad owns a small nursery which houses a variety of plants.

Wayne posted some pictures of his orchids on social media and it has caught the attention of some members of the Singapore Teddy Bear Lovers Group. Hence, an outing to the nursery was planned!

L-R: Sharon, Su Ling, Joyce, Philip and Wayne

Philip organised the trip to Melvin's nursery last Sunday and Wayne, Su Ling, Sharon and Joyce excitedly joined the trip. We were very thankful to Joyce for driving us to the location.

Wayne and TIc Tic

At nursery, we were all welcomed warmly by Melvin and his pet dog, Tic Tic! Inside the nursery, everyone was very impressed with the variety of orchids and there were a couple of orchids which are rarely seen in other commercial nurseries. Melvin shared with us that their nursery aren't open to public and it was solely open for hobbyist via appointment only.

With the beautiful surroundings, Wayne, Su Ling and Joyce quickly took our their handmade bears and took some pictures with the flowers.

 L-R: Bears made by Wayne, Joyce and Su Ling

Su Ling is so excited to visit the nursery.

After that, everybody excitedly went around the nursery and started snapping the lovely orchids on display. Some of the plants weren't potted as they enjoy growing on wooden stubs or air hanged. Melvin gave everyone some tips and knowledge on the different plants and how to grow them properly.

Joyce and Su Ling adventurously picked 2 pots of orchids each with no flowers on them. Melvin said that this is the beauty of purchasing orchids with flowers yet to bloom. It will keep you in suspense because you do not know what type or colours of the orchids will bloom! It will probably takes 1-2 weeks for the buds to blossom and it will certainly be a great surprise to both Joyce and Su Ling when the times comes!

Purchase of the day by Su Ling, Joyce and Sharon!

At the end of day, Joyce, Su Ling and Sharon bought some pots of orchids from Melvin to beautify their homes. Thank you Melvin for sharing his lovely nursery with us. We look forward to visit his nursery again in future when the other plants bloom!

Hugs,

Wayne

Lunch with Jena and his mum

Two days ago, we had two very special guests coming all the way from England to Singapore! Jena, who is one of the biggest antique bear collector in UK, came to Singapore for the very first time with his mum!

Jena owns many bears mostly in Mint condition and because of his love & passion in collecting Teddy Bears, he has been featured on several publications as well as television programmes.

Wayne specially arranged to bring Jena and his mum to the Mint Museum of Toys, a place where Wayne had previously worked at. In the museum, there are plenty of vintage Teddy Bears and toys on display which Wayne thinks they would be interested in. Wayne also arranged to have his friend Richard Tan, the curator of the Toy Museum, to give them a guided tour.

Richard, curator of the Mint Museum of Tour giving a guided tour

Richard brought them around through the several floors of vintage toys and teddy bears, providing interesting snippets of historic information which people may not know about. We could see Jena's interest in toys as he took out his mobile phone and started to take pictures right away!

After the museum guided tour, we brought Jena and his mum to Sin Swee Kee Chicken Rice Restaurant to try local Hainanese Chicken rice and other local dishes. Jena's mum told us her last visit to Singapore was 35 years ago! She love Singapore as it is very clean and safe.

Jena shared with us his knowledge in collecting and maintaining bears during lunch. It was very interesting to learn the various techniques to maintain and preserve antique bears. Most of them suffer from "wear and tear" due to humidity and rough handling. Jena also shared ways to minimise damage to bears when cleaning them.

Jena shared some of his bears he had brought along with him. Wayne and Philip quickly "bearnap" his three polar bears made by Svetlana Khabarova to take a picture with them!

Back Row L-R: Wayne, Irene and Philip
Front Row L-R: Esther, Jena's Mum, Jena and Richard

We had a wonderful lunch with them and gained fruitful knowledge about Antique Teddy Bears as well. We hope to meet them soon again next time in London! We would like to specially thank Richard for giving us an educational guided tour of the Toy Museum, and Philip, Esther and Irene for joining us!

Hugs,

Wayne

Fun Fur Day & CNY Gathering

Celebrate Lunar New Year with our first "Fun Fur Day" event in year 2017!

This meet-up features a Bear Artist - Anna Filatova from Russia as well as local Bear Artists namely Esther Lee and Wayne Lim!

Join us, bring along your favourite Teddy Bears & Dolls for this fun event, meet and mingle with the group!

Please register your interest with Wayne before 13 January at waynestonbears@yahoo.com.sg

Cheers,Wayne

A wonderful evening with the Singapore Teddy Bear Lovers

(Top L-R): Evelyn, Gabrielle, Philip, Marcia & Me (Below L-R): Irene, Anna & Esther

On Friday night, I organized a Teddy Bear Gathering and was pleased to see such a big turnout!

Most of the attendees are from the Singapore Teddy Bear Lovers Facebook Group, which was created by me a year ago. This is the first time so many people came as in the past, it was normally just Esther, Irene and myself.

I have always been actively looking for people who are keen in bear making to join us.
 

To make this happen, I took the initiative to call some of my students to join the "lonely" 3 of us for this gathering.

One of the highlights of the event was that we had a very special guest all the way from Russia........

Anna Filatova! Anna is a bear artist who is currently residing in Singapore. She makes beautiful traditional vintage style bears. Her appearance made us all very excited as this is the first time we have an overseas bear artist joining us in the gathering.

We enjoyed our Japanese dinner at Ramen Champion and decided to settle down at the spacious McDonald's to "show off" our bears!

There was certainly an impressive number of bears on the table and this caught the attention of passersby who were simply blown away by the display. Ha ha...... I bet they must have been wondering what on earth we were doing!

Our large collection is more than enough to fill up a show table!

After the gathering, Anna, Esther, Philip and I walked to the National Museum as well as the Art Museum to enjoy the Night Festival.

All of us certainly enjoyed our evening together and I am sure everyone of us are looking forward to the next one soon.

I would also like to thank my best friend Philip, for taking these beautiful pictures for us all.

Currently, there are about 20 people in the Singapore Teddy Bear Lovers Group. I hope to gather more bear/doll lovers & artists and have an even bigger gathering next time.

If you are a Teddy Bear Enthusiast/Artist/Collector would like to join us for future gatherings, do join the Facebook group here. *Please note that this group is meant for people who reside in Singapore Only.

The more the merrier!

Here's a short video to share our happy moments with you ^.^

Hugs,

Wayne

Wonderful Dinner with Bear Friend, Esther

2 days ago, I have a meet up with my friend, Esther who is also a bear artist in Singapore. As usual, we bought along few of our newer bears which we have adopted and made recently.

We had Japanese Sushi for dinner and later went to a spacious place for tea and coffee. It's a pity that one of our friends couldn't come to join us.

 

Esther showed me 3 bears which she has adopted recently. The gold coloured bear is made by Janice Woodard, cute little puppy made by Leny van der Eijk and the vintage red bear made by Natalja Fjodorova. Esther also bought the little bear which is her latest creation.

I bought along 3 bears from my collection, the bunny which I have swapped recently with Janice Woodard, an adorable little mouse made by Lori Ann and Jovial the panda which I have made.

It was once again another fun meet up which we chatted about our bear collection and bear making techniques. We are looking forward to our next meet up soon!

Dinner with the Teddy Bear Lovers!

Yesterday night, I met up with 2 of our local Singapore artists, Esther Lee and Irene Goh for dinner.

Top: My birthday swap birthday made by Natalia and Below: Little Bear made by Irene

Left: Irene and Right: Esther

Esther holding her black bear

The black bear is my favourite bear yesterday night

Irene and Esther's Bear, Peaches

Made by Esther

Made by Esther

It was a nice meet up with bear friends again to chat about bears and the different ways to make them. We are already looking forward to our next meet up!

I have created a Facebook Group lately named "Singapore Teddy Bear Lovers", it's a group specially formed for Singaporean Teddy Bear Enthusiast. If you are an Artist/Teddy Bear Collector or a Bear Artist, you might want to join our group. I am still in the midst of coordinating and promoting the group, hopefully one day our group will grow. As the group gets more members, we could have a monthly gathering and organise events as a team =)

Hugs,
Wayne