5 Ways To Use Essentials By Ellen Bear Ware 3

The Essentials by Ellen Bear Ware 3 is an incredibly adorable & versatile stamp set and today we are sharing 5 fabulous ways to use it in your cardmaking!

Hi Folks, it’s Kelly from Notable Nest! One of my favorite Essentials by Ellen sets has always been All Inside by Julie Ebersole for a couple reasons: that bear is darn cute, his deadpan expression cracks me up, and if you also get the corresponding All Inside die, it cuts out his hands so he can hold things, making him even more adorable. The fun seems to magnify when you dress him up with tiny accessories from the Bear Ware sets. It should be no surprise to anyone that I was ridiculously excited for the latest Bear Ware set to be released, Bear Ware 3!

Not only are all the elements in this set absolutely charming and adorable, but they’re also very versatile. I’d love to share with you FIVE different ways to use this set. Let’s take a look…

1. Use the Accessories as Intended (with the Bear). As mentioned earlier, the accessories are all sized to fit in the bear’s little hands. You can leave the accessory loose for the recipient to play with, or put adhesive on the back for a more  secure fit.

Another thing I love about this bear and his accessories is that you don’t need a lot of effort to end up with a fun card. No coloring with this polar bear (in the middle of summertime no less) and minimal coloring on the tiny hot dog and handle.

You can change this whole card by putting a different accessory in his hands, like the beach ball, bucket and shovel from the original Bear Ware set, or the fishing pole and fish. That would be a fun set to give someone … several card bases that look similar, and several different accessories for them to mix and match.

2. Use the Accessories to Make a Scene. Bear Ware 2 is all about Halloween, Christmas and Winter. I used the pumpkin to make a pile of pumpkins (not inking up the face for most of them). I have a fascination with blue pumpkins, so that’s the route I went here, avoiding the color orange all together.

The cover plate is Bed of Roses by Julie Ebersole. What could be better than black roses on Halloween?! I was going for a more mature, classy Halloween card here with the subdued and dark colors.

3. Use the Accessories to make a Custom Pattern/Background. To get this consistent, repetitive background I arranged the stamps on a block and eyeballed where to stamp.

The concept for this card is that it’s a little book or pamphlet, titled “grill.all.the.things.” I’ve wrapped the spine with fancy inked paper, and adhered the title front and center.

The inside of the book is a few pages of copy paper tied together with gold string. I thought it would be cute for Father’s Day if every one of us took a page and wrote a little note on why Dad is special to us. The beer and spatula are actually from the Leading Gentleman set! Which leads me to the next idea…

4. Combine accessories from the different Bear War sets. This patriotic bear is just about to head to a picnic, thanks to the Bear Ware 3 and Bare Ware sets. The fireworks are from the sparkler accessory, minus the handle.

I tried to make the cloth coming out of the basket look like a bandana by using a white gel pen. The bear is mounted on some chipboard that I die cut instead of cutting a lot of pieces of foam tape.

5. Find Other, Non-Bear-Related Sets in the Same Scale. I was thrilled to find that the recently released Little Lady is just the perfect size to hold up many of these accessories, including a batch of lucky clovers for St. Patrick’s Day!

To begin with, I smooshed a few greens inks on my stamping block and picked it up with my cardstock. I tried to get some different textures on her sweater and skirt, while keeping everything as green as I can. Red hair and some freckles on her nose and cheeks complete my coloring adventure. Isn’t she just the cutest holding up her lucky bouquet?!

I die cute the Hello from another recent release, Letterboard Script 2, and paired that with the Happy St. Patrick’s Day sentiment from the Bear Ware 3 set.

Well, thanks for staying with me though all the projects today! As you can see, I enjoyed myself thoroughly breaking in the new Bear Ware 3 set. It’s really a great set to have in your collection. Hope you are left with a few ideas running through your head!

All the best,
Kelly

P.S. I was having so much fun with this set that all my cards wouldn’t fit in this post! You can see more on my blog!

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