The Platinum Jubilee

What a brilliant stroke of luck! This is the teddy bears' 100th story - and it coincides with Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee celebrations! The teddy bears are sure that she won't mind sharing the occasion with them!

Queen Elizabeth II is the first British monarch in history to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years on the throne. And this year, those of us in Britain have an extended 4-day Bank Holiday weekend.

The bears have been discussing all week how they could celebrate both occasions and finally chose to hold a Royal Garden Party of their own for themselves and their friends. And they thought it would be a brilliant idea if they dressed up just a little bit like royalty. They decided that they would each make their own royal crown to wear for the party.

They have a huge craft box and they went rummaging to find some things to turn into crowns. They first thought that they would have to spend lots of time cutting out strips from large pieces of paper, but Lizzie found some ready-cut paper strips in all sorts of pretty colours and patterns which would be just the right size for teddy bear heads. Boo found some little pearls, James found some pretty beads, and the others found lots and lots of shiny and jewel-like things.

And Alfred found some Union Jack flags that they could wave!

To make the paper strips look more like crowns, Lizzie and Richard drew out some crown templates, one for a crown with points on top, and one for a crown with circles. Then all the other bears borrowed the templates to cut out their own crowns in whichever shape they liked best, each choosing a different coloured paper strip.

Once all the crowns were cut out, it was time to add all the decorations to look like jewels and precious stones. They chose jewelled braids and ribbons for the base of the crown, then glued on pearls, stars, glittery flowers, tiny diamonds and rubies (though not real diamonds and rubies of course!)

When they had all finished, they suddenly remembered that they would need food and drink for their party! Luckily they had bought some delicious desserts with a royal theme - Jubilee Cherries to be eaten with ice cream, Battenberg cakes and a huge Victoria sponge cake filled with jam and cream.

All they needed to do was make some Coronation Chicken sandwiches, and some very dainty cucumber sandwiches. And there would have to be lots of cups of tea, and some sparkly lemonade with which to toast Her Majesty!

They took all the food and drink out into the garden, and then put on their crowns and went outside to enjoy the festivities.

Happy Platinum Jubilee, your Majesty! And congratulations to the teddy bears on their 100th story!