Little Bear

Little Bear was created as a gift to a long-time family of friends with just having had its first grandbaby, a little girl.

At the time of deciding to make this piece only a little information was known about the baby and what art style might be most preferred (the ‘telling details’), as that it had been a few years since seeing them, but they were still considered ‘near and dear’ and wanted to gift them something.

The inspiration came when it was discovered that the babies nickname was ‘Little Bear’ and how the Nickelodeon cartoon show of Little Bear and its adventures of things that all little kids like to do and have fun with. A second piece of inspiration came from having known this family from years attending the same church and its community interactions; which gave the insight of knowing how much their Christian faith was a guide and how they taught their kids as they grew.

With those two pieces of inspiration, came the idea of using a poem and or a scripture that tells little girls of their uniqueness, gifts they possess, and strength of character; combined with some visual and fun pieces in 3D’d images of Little Bear in some of her adventures.

I bought a cut piece of plywood from Home Depot to create a backboard and then added some nice neutral fabric found on a Lil’ Piece Treasure Hunt with some spray glue.

To create the images used for this piece I searched Google images in the coloring pages for Little Bear, and a lot of great options came up. I picked quite a few to save for later to see what options would work best in the design and layout that was going to be created.

The wording and fonts were chosen specifically to show emphasis, and a ‘message written in message’. Some of the fonts were found in Word but others with a more unique look were found on Font Generator & Free Custom Online Text Changer (fontspace.com) and written in their ‘copy and paste generator’.

To create the 3D’d effect Each of the images and words are printed on cardstock and hand cut, then foam mounting squares like those found here on Amazon.com are added to the backs. Sometimes we will also find some at Dollar Tree, although they are usually a slightly larger square; but can very easily cut to a smaller shape.