Do People Look at you Funny?

Do people look at you funny when you tell them you collect teddy bears? I know they do to me sometimes. I'm sure it's because they are picturing only the "toy store" variety of teddy bears. They have no idea what an artist teddy bear is!

One of my (many) goals is to try to educate the general public about artist teddy bears. My slogan is: Teddy Bears as Collectible Art - Teddy Bear Collecting... it's not just for kids!

I just signed up to participate in a church craft show down the street from where I live. When I told the sweet lady who is doing some of the organizing how much my bears cost... she was a little surprised. (I'm sure she's thinking toy store variety bears!) I told her that my main goal for this show was to educate possible new collectors about the world of artist teddy bears!

Now I NEED to finish designing the flyer that I've had in my head for the last year. The flyer that explains about the world of artist teddy bears. And I must finish it by October 20th! :)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Saturday was housecleaning/grocery/laundry day for me. Sunday we went to Bob's parents' house to make applesauce.

Bob just LOVES his mom's homemade applesauce, so we've made it a fall tradition to go to their house in September or so to make up a big batch to freeze. We had a nice barBQ lunch afterwards too.

Today is Monday which means back to bears! I must be one of the few people who enjoy Mondays LOL!

Displaying your Bears

When I first started collecting bears, they were all in natural colors. As time went on, however, I started adding non-traditionally colored bears (and bunnies!)

One of my favorite colors is purple. You may have noticed how many purple bears and bunnies I make LOL!

Another way to display your bears, if you have bears of non-traditional colors - is to group similarly colored bears together!

Teddy Bear Related Mysteries!

One of my favorite pasttimes is reading. I can't get enough! I take a book with me even if I go to the post office and I may have to stand in line LOL! My favorite type of books to read are mysteries. I grew up on Nancy Drew... and never really wanted to go much anywhere else!

One of my friends told me about a relatively new series of mystery books written by John J. Lamb. He (the author) is a retired homicide detective and hostage negotiator and he and his wife both collect teddy bears!

I was a little skeptical at first when my friend lent me her book... but then I could not put it down!

Here is a partial quote of a reader's review of his book at Amazon:

.......Don't let the cover fool you. There is nothing soft and cuddly about this mystery. Almost from the first chapter, there's a palpable sense of danger and impending disaster looming over a main character (that you really do care about) that compels you to keep turning the pages until you've finished the thing. This novel is full of delightfully sleazy bad guys, plot twists and surprises, and an accurate, detailed depiction of police and detective work that stays interesting and never becomes pedantic........

This IS a murder mystery - but with a teddy bear show setting. If any of this interests you... you can find his books here: The Mournful Teddy The False Hearted Teddy The Crafty Teddy

Euro Teddy Germany - Oct 6 & 7 2007

I just received an email about what looks like a fabulous teddy bear show! I will not be attending... as I believe it's in Germany. But I still wanted to spread the word!

The information can be found on their website: http://www.euro-teddy.de/start.html

The website is in German. For a decent online translator, try http://world.altavista.com/tr
It won't be an exact translation, but you should be able to get most of it.

If you are planning on attending, I recommend contacting the show people if you are not sure where the show is being held. I looked for a little while and could not figure that part out.

2 ... maybe 3 new Bears this week!

I know I have not had many new creations available on my website this summer... and for this I do apologize! I do have one last show to get ready for for the year - but I am determined to keep new "fur kids" on my website at the same time.

Coming soon..... a sweet 10 1/2" girl dressed as a witch for trick or treating....the first in my long planned collection of "Sweet Temptations" bears.... and MAYBE... my first kitty... for Halloween!

Thank you to EVERYONE for your support!
Hugz,
Laura Lynn

Teddy Bear Jubilee in Kansas City!

I'm FINALLY starting to get back to "normal" here (whatever that means LOL!) and finally have my show photos resized from the Teddy Bear Jubilee.

Tere were more tables than I have pictured here. I just couldn't get to them all! I was still working on bears during the show LOL!!

I had a wonderful time! There were so many awesome artists at this show - it was mouthwatering :) After the show bunches of artists and collectors went out to dinner in groups... and many of us got together afterwards to chat in the hotel lobby.

Someone took some pictures with a disposable camera (some a little incriminating LOL!) I'll have to try to remember who that was so I can get copies!!

Then later, there was a birthday party for Marji Bebiak (Hucklebeary Junction) It was her birthday on that actual day. She made the souvenier "bear" (it was the most adorable elephant holding a teddy bear) She's been out of bear shows for a little while... but is hoping to get back to it in 2008! Good Bears of the World did a LOT of publicity for this show... advertising for 3 months in the teddy magazines, many newspaper ads, publicity on television. One of the TV spots was Good Bears of the World gifted some teddy bears to Rudy Niswanger of the Kansas City Chiefs at Operation Breakthrough. One of their local TV stations, Channel 5 (CBS affiliate) covered the gifting, and ran the story on the 10 o’clock news Tuesday evening. I'm looking forward to next year. The tentative date set is Sept.12 & 13 2008. Here's their website: http://www.goodbearsoftheworld.org/teddyjubilee.htm

And now... the show photos!!!

<

Let Us Not Forget.....

My thoughts and prayers are with you all this day....

Spell with Pictures

I was reading my favorite blogs this morning... and Sarah P posted this cool site where you can spell out any word using photos from Flickr! Isn't that neat?

You may wonder how long it takes me to read all my blogs... well actually it doesn't take all that long. I don't go to every blog listed in my links to see if anyone has updated their blogs. I use a blog reader that tells me who's updated. I use Googles Reader as I use a lot of Google stuff. I've used Bloglines and it is a good one also. Some people also add Feedblitz to their blogs (like I did) so anyone can subscribe to a blog and be notified in their email when the blog has been updated.

Just Received my First Payment for Online Surveys!

Earlier I mentioned that I was trying out a few online survey companies that claimed to pay you for your opinion. I wanted to wait to see if I got paid before mentioning more... and today I got my first $50 payment! So NOW I want to share it with you :) I wanted to be sure it was "for real" first :)

Here's a little more information about these surveys...

First, membership with the survey company is free.

The easiest way to get paid is thru Paypal - although I believe they now offer payment via paper check now also. They pay twice a month once your account reaches $50 or more and you have requested payment. It takes a few business days for the $ to show up in your account.

The Surveys: There are some surveys that cost nothing to participate in. But yes, in many cases it does cost you some money for the sample product. On your "My Surveys" page - under each survey they are very specific about how much you have to pay, and how much total you will receive once you complete the survey.

**Important Note!!!! Some surveys will charge you a small trial fee initially, then if you do not call to cancel +/or return the product, they will charge the "full amount" after a specified number of days.

Be sure to read all fine print, print out all confirmations... and if you do not care to keep the service, REMEMBER to CANCEL the service in time!

Now... all that said... I am very excited about taking more surveys now!
Click on this button & you can sign up to make money taking surveys too:

A little tired this morning... Isis gave us a scare last night...

As some of you know... one of our Whippet Girls - Isis has congestive heart failure at only 7 years old. We are savoring every minute we have with her as we're not sure how long that is. In late April we were told 4-6 weeks. Here we are in September and she's still with us!

Our sweet Girl appears to be OK now... but last night she had a few coughing fits and then very rapid shallow breathing... both bad signs of heart problems.

We called our vet at 4:30 in the morning- they are a 24 hour vet.... and they gave us some advice for the rest of the evening. She did get a bit better - no more coughing and the breathing much better - but they had us come in to see if her medications needed to be adjusted.

I am happy to say that although her heart sounds very bad (which is not new) her lungs and still clear!!!!!! Her pulse is good too :) They have us a newly approved heart drug (which has been in use in Canada & Europe for years) that they think will help her even more.

So today... we had planned on going to the Renaissance Faire - but I am more than happy to stay home with Isis and the other Girls to keep an eye on her - and Bob took our two adorable neighbor twin boys to the Faire.