Family Creates Pebble Paddington Bear Tribute To Queen Elizabeth II

On Thursday afternoon, Queen Elizabeth IIpassed away at age 96 around 1:30 PM ET on September 8, 2022.

“The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon," read a statement released by The Royal Family. "The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.”

Many celebrities and famous faces in Hollywood took to social media to mourn the loss of Her Majesty the Queen, including Paddington Bear.

On the day she passed away, Paddington Bear, who recently celebrated the Platinum Jubilee with the Queen in June, tweeted, "Thank you Ma’am, for everything."

Many artists from around the world were quick to share depictions of the Queen with the iconic stuffed bear, including one family in Wales who created Paddington Bear on the beach using pebbles.

As Wales Online reported, one artistic family decided to honor the late Queen by creating a heartfelt Paddington Bear tribute made out of pebbles and shells.

Ieva Slare, 50, revealed that she spent around five hours creating the image with the help of her family on Sandymere beach in Devon on Sunday, September 11, a few days after Her Majesty had passed away.

The family’s housekeeper has a degree in art and actually sketched an image of Paddington Bear for the family, which Slare’s husband, Dzintars, 53, and children Emanuels, 14, and Elizabete, 12, searched the beach for pebbles and shells. The creative artwork shows the beloved bear wearing his signature blue duffle coat and raising his red hat while clutching a suitcase. A single tear, created by a strategically placed mussel shell, is placed below his eyes.

The group signed their work “Beach4Art” and stayed at the beach for several hours to watch it be carried away by the tied. The mom-of-four said that she decided to use Paddington Bear to pay tribute to the late Queen as a nod to the marmalade sandwich sketch she did with him in June during the Platinum Jubilee celebration.

Ieva Slare emigrated to the U.K. from Latvia about a decade ago, and finds the tribute even more meaningful since Paddington Bear also arrived in the U.K. from a foreign country. Ieva, from Bideford, Devon, told the outlet, “We'd just come back from holiday and we got the sad news, it was a very strange and sad moment. We've been living in the UK for ten years and we're part of the society. We're feeling very thankful for the government and the country where we can live, work and raise our children. It's our home.”

“We had this responsibility, this duty, to give a nice tribute to our precious Queen, to her majesty. She's a very special, inspirational person who lived with us for so many years. We're big royalists,” she added before she went about explaining how she created the elaborate sketch.

“We spent four to five hours collecting pebbles and putting it together and I spent two hours sketching and exploring and thinking about it before,” she said. “We chose Paddington because he's a very special symbol after the Queen and Paddington ate together in Buckingham Palace.”

“He's very symbolic for us because we're foreign and he was a refugee. He arrived from Peru to London looking for family and a nice place and he found it,” she continued. “We've received a lot of letters, people are writing to us every day saying we made their day and made them smile. We didn't realize how important it would be.”

Many celebrities, including Paris Hilton and Elton John, also paid tribute to the late Queen after her tragic passing. Those interested can read their thoughtful tributes to the late Queen by clicking here.