Bear and Bird Boutique + Gallery

I made another person!

amagnetta — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:48:53 +0000

Seems like 90% of my blog posts are me APOLOGIZING for not posting more often. But… I have a good excuse! I made a person!

This little guy came out a month ago and he and his (nearly 2 year old) big sister have been keeping me busy busy. Lucky for me I have a great team who keep things running smoothly while I micro-manage them from home. ha ha…

We have some awesome new product coming into the shop in the new few weeks and are doing a bit of sprucing up and rearranging as well before the next show opens. No resting on our laurels for us!

Next art show opening on May 5, 2012 is going to be extra specially awesome. All the art in the show will be priced at $100 or less, with the intent of getting fine folks to jumpstart their art collections! Collecting art is a bit addicting, in a good way. …and I have seen WAY TOO MANY blank walls in the homes of fun, creative people. You know who you are!

-Amanda

Brand new Jellycat brand plush!

amagnetta — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:26:16 +0000

I dunno about you, but when I am out and about shopping I just NEVER see cute stuffed animals anymore! At a recent trip to Toys R’ Us, all I saw were really gross pink leopard print bears and worse. Ughhh….. not cute. As a kid, I loved my stuffed friends and my daughter Rosemary, at 20 months, loves them too. She has a couple super special ones at home (Teddy & Monkey) who sleep with her every night and help her brush her teeth. Her plush family got a few new additions today and her arms were FULL at bedtime.

So, when you want to give your kid (or yourself) an amazingly soft and loveable new friend – you KNOW where to come to find them. These lil guys look even better once they are loved up and scruffy too.

Rosemary absolutely LOVES Jellycat plush. They all got kisses too.

Nice, fresh plush display... probably won't stay orderly for long! These guys are wild!

Assortment of super cute and soft bears and bunnies! <3

Monkeys big and small... lil donkeys... soft, colorful, floppy buddies and more bears!

This smile says it all... these guys will bring you or your kid JOY!

The 2012 Bear and Bird business card is off to the printer!

amagnetta — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:29:15 +0000

My goal is to have the 2012 card printed by the END of 2011, but hey priorities. There was just too much to do and too little time the past few months. But, now… now it is done! Thank you once again to the inimitable Aurian Redson for his charming illustrations.

Amazing Everything: the art of Scott C. book is a must have!

amagnetta — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:10:28 +0000

Just before Christmas we got in a new and amazing art book featuring the work of Scott Campbell, known as Scott C. – if you aren’t familiar with his work, then you are missing out… its high time to become a fan! His work is clever and charming and singularly amusing.

The introduction to the book is fantastic as well, it was fun to learn about his journey from childhood potato drawings to where he is today. Don’t be lame and skip over the intro since it’s “a lot of words” – you will enjoy the book approximately 38% more once you read it!

Way back in 2007 Mr. C was a part of our “Cute Attack” show – his pieces were small watercolors featuring medieval knights at odds with cute creatures who seemed to overwhelm with their size and sweet lil faces! The outcome of the “Adorable Battles” is not on record, but we all know that cuteness always wins!!

After thoroughly enjoying this lovely book, I was thrilled and WAY surprised to see that we were mentioned in the acknowledgements! Such a kind, thoughtful gesture really speaks of the nature of Scott C. Even the little people (like us) who he worked with along the way were remembered. Makes me feel like hugging and eating pizza!

Thank you Scott C. and have a happy new year all!!

-Amanda

Our annual Cash & Carry show “Small Stuff” opens Sunday!

amagnetta — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:50:52 +0000

Please join us for the opening of our annual cash & carry Small Stuff show this coming Sunday, November 20th from 1-5pm! It is the 6th annual Small Stuff show if you can believe it and I truly think it has some of the best art for the best prices so far!

Art by (L to R): Jerrod Maruyama, Danielle Estefan, Aurian Redson

This is our favorite show of the year, with so many great pieces (over 150) for such great prices (as low as $15!)… you totally don’t want to miss the lovely brunchtime opening! It’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving, so you know you can make it! If you’re not able to trek over to us on Sunday, rest assured we will have the work available for online purchase lickety-split… that’s fast!

Art by (L to R): Holly Schaefer, Ryan Hungerford, Erika Taguchi-Newton

All the artwork is 8×10 or smaller and affordably priced for gift giving. Local, national and international artists with a wide range of styles & subject matter. We are starting out with over 150 pieces in total, there will be the perfect gift for someone here… maybe even YOU!

Art by (L to R): Patrick Maxcy, Ryan Fowler, Sara Leigh

Small Stuff is the show opening that you will kick yourself for missing, because you will totally want dibs! So, round up your cool friends, bring your mom, expose your kids to art… it is going to be LOVELY!

A few excellent reasons you don’t want to miss the Small Stuff opening:

Truly fantastic art for great prices, really great!
It is cash and carry, so you get to take your new artwork home as soon as you buy it!
If you don’t come to the opening, you will MISS OUT on some great art. Since it goes home right away you won’t even get to SEE the best stuff unless you come to the opening!
Mimosas!!! …and doughnut treats!
Start your holiday shopping right BEFORE Thanksgiving, that way you can feel like you’re ahead of the game. Art=awesome gifts.

Plus, the super added bonus is that you are supporting a family owned business and independent artists at the same time… like MAGIC! Holiday magic…

Includes artwork from: A. Pants; Amanda Valdes; Amber “Ambird” Seegmiller; Aurian Redson; Benjamin Constantine; Bianca “Bee” Medina; Bong Redila; Brandon Reese; Brandy Rumiez; Brian Butler; Cassie Hart Kelly; Christine Curry Coates; Danielle Estefan; Danny Brito; Dave Perillo; Dutch Door Press; Edau; Elisa Sassi; Erika Taguchi-Newton; Giselle Gonzalez; Holly Schaefer; Jamie Fales; Jarod Rosello; Jerrod Maruyama; Joanna Barnum; Johannah O’Donnell; John Kissee; Jordan Steele Thompson; Karen Watkins; Kay Garcia; Kristin Tercek; MAp-Map; Michael Fleming; Natalia Pierandrei; Nathan Stapley; Patrick Maxcy; Ripley’s Odditorium; Rob Bridges; Ryan Fowler; Ryan Hungerford; Sandra Lucia; Sara Harvey; Sara Leigh; Steven Macleod; Thomas Ascott; Tiffany Battel; Todd Nolan; and MORE!

Link to Flyer

Gotta Getta Gund… At Bear and Bird!

amagnetta — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 19:17:35 +0000

The first of some of the awesome new product we are getting in for holiday shoppers!

Much of the cuteness you behold is from Gund, a plush company that’s been around since 1898! They are ALL super soft and priced great… I never personally see cute plush around much for sale these days, and Rosemary loves her stuffed animal buddies!!

October Bear and Bird display cube!

amagnetta — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 00:16:08 +0000

Right next to our register downstairs, we have setup a little 12x12x12 glass cube display to showcase some of the various products we carry upstairs in the Bear and Bird Boutique. It is an effort to entice customers to make the looooong climb up the stairs (lol) to take a look. You’d truly be surprised how many people never make it up to see what’s happening… they just assume its something they wouldn’t be interested in I guess!

Anyway, we change out the cube display once a month and here is a pic of the newest refresh by Kreisten! She did a great job and included a sweet (so soft) little brown bear from Jellycat England; some awesome stripy animal sticker from Djeco France ($5 for 4 big sheets!); GloBoy, a new solar powered light from Fred; one of the cute little cup/bowl sets from PecanPals; some Automoblox from Manhattan Toys and Souper the spoon head action figure (dishwasher safe!) from Fred.

Fun stuff, right? We’ll post next months display as well, to give those of you non-locals a glimpse.

Creep Cinema opens Saturday, 10/1 at 6pm!

amagnetta — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 22:20:14 +0000

Creep Cinema, our annual October “all locals” megashow features 150 South Florida local’s take on scary movies!

More images of the art and opening to come… This is just a sneak peek! We just finished hanging… Whew!!!

Opening tomorrow night at 6pm!

We love Mary Blair too…

amagnetta — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:12:38 +0000

While briefly visiting Aurian Redson’s blog earlier this week I was tickled to find that he contributed to this cool website which I had never heard of! It is called illostribute and their tagline is “investigation through interpretation” – that’s a pretty nifty and simple premise and I love the idea that artists explore and are inspired by a variety of sources, I think it will help expose new fans to these “old” favorites too. I am often surprised by how artists don’t know anything about the history of “style” they adopt as their own and perhaps were subliminally (?) inspired by in their childhoods.

This specific assignment by illostribute, I came across on Aurian’s site, was explore the essence of the work of Mary Blair. I love Mary Blair! Her work is so fun, funky and simply adorable. It’s happy and angular and so totally of the era. The background info on Ms. Blair, written by illostribute, was comprehensive and interesting. This type of scholarly respect is all too often missing online. Kudos to you guys, I will be sure to pop back to your site when I get time!

Aurian’s contribution to this project is as sweet and original as can be. I couldn’t be more proud to have had him do the illustrations for Bear and Bird, here on this site and more fun stuff to come! Check out both his site and illostribute for some lovely things. -Amanda

R.I.P. Old Bear and Bird website… 2007-2011

amagnetta — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:12:02 +0000

Just a quick little screen shot and mention of the obvious… Bear and Bird web 1.0 is now part of the archives…! Originally created by me in Adobe GoLive with scant knowledge of html, the old site served its purpose well, but it was time for an update! Sweet Jen Wang artwork in the nav bar, you will be missed – but not forgotten!

This new and hopefully improved site was created for the most part by the inimitable Anna Pants in the weird, wide world of WordPress! I helped a teeny tiny bit with the look and feel mostly. One of the goals in changing the site was to make it even easier to navigate and to update. Please expect much more frequent blog posts here and other fun stuff.

Another wonderful addition to this new site is the artwork of Aurian Redson – who created a number of custom original illustrations for us specifically for use on the site. We gave him little direction, other than to use his amazing style to create some pieces including a Bear and a Bird. What he came back to us with inspired and delighted us to no end. He truly is a wonderful artist and person, we are proud and honored to have his charisma filled Bear and Bird represent us in a visual cuteness!

Promise we will put together a post soon that shows all of the art he created, along with the awesome sketches & ideas he came up with.

xoxox -Amanda