Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

I'm very delighted to tell you that this year's Euro-Teddy Awards went extremely well for me.
In the miniature undressed category my Andean bears Peruana and Pep won the 1st place award.


And in the miniature dressed category Les Misérables won the first place award. I'm exspecially proud on little Cosette, as she measures only 5.5cm /2.2"

Yes, Peter, this is Knut, so sad he is no longer with us, but at least his Daddy Thomas was waiting for him  at the end of the rainbow bridge.

Two elephants doing their daily meditation. Ganesh and Krishna were inspired by my trip to India last November.
Their fur is Schulte mohair, hand-dyed with pigments from Varanasi and the bindis on their foreheads are from Varanasi, too. Their trunks, legs and arms are wired so that they can sit comfortably when doing their meditation.

I also finished another dragon and three nosy little meerkats. To see them in the fur, please visit me in hall 1, stand 1.

These are some of the bears and dragons that will be with me at Hugglets next Sunday. If you want to see them in the fur, please visit me in hall 1, stand 1.

I hope it is okay if I post my winners here:
In the miniature dressed category it's Dodge, inspired by George Clooney in Leatherheads and in the miniature undressed category The Sloth Bear Taxi.


I can't tell you how proud and happy I am about these two Industry's Choice Awards....

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments, and yes, the bears had their extra portion of porridge, with a lot of honey 

I'm extremely delighted to tell you that my Balou & Mom (sloth bears) won 1st place in the miniature undressed category 

Bobby, no need to worry, no toes stepped on 
I just wanted to point out that it is absolutely okay to bring only a few bears and tell about my own experience with empty tables.

By the way, my only "decoration" at Hugglets are two or three boxes, nomally used to transport my bears and maybe the book I'm reading at the moment, covered with a table cloth.
So far, people didn't mind, apparently, they understand that exhibitors coming from overeseas can't bring tons of decoration with them.

Thanks to Ryan Air and Easy Hotel, my expenses for Hugglets are not that high, so no problem to cover them with a handfull of bears.

And this brings me to antoher idea:
Maybe we could start exchanging our experiences with cheap airlines, hotels and train tickets here on TT?

About the three bears for a show: My neighbour at the last Hugglets show had exactly four (!) very tiny miniature bears with her, last year she had six bears, but she sold them all.

When I saw that I couldn't help but thinking: Lucky girl, she can travel with hand lugguage only, which is really comfortable, when you have to travel by plane and take the tube to get to the show.

So, I decided that I could do the show with less bears, too and my motto since that has been "hand luggage only".
So, naturally, I can't take more than 15 to 20 of my miniatures, which means that my table looks rather empty, but funnily my sales have increased since that.

At the same time, I could minimize my expenses: I fly with Ryan Air, and as I travel with hand luggage only, I don't have to pay any additional fee and I can stay at one of the Easy Hotels. In these hotels, there is no elevator and the rooms are really tiny, with a large bed, but the rest of the room has the size of the back seat of a VW Golf, so definitley not recommended for people who travel with a lot of luggage. Bur for me, with hand luggage only, it's perfect.

So, if you want to take only three bears with you, why not?

Thank you, Conni!

Congratulations to all my fellow nominees. I can't wait to see the pictures of your creations.
And here is mine, little Dodge. I'm really proud on this little bear.
He measures only 3.2" and has all the features that my bigger 4" bears have. As the miniature category in this competition was only for bears 3,5" and under, I decided to try a smaller bear and I'm really happy about the result and this nomination is a wonderful motivation to try more bears in this size.
O, and before I forget: Little Dodge was inspired by George Clooney in Leatherheads, maybe I should send him a little thank -you-card?

Karen, your snow leopard is amazing.

Fortunately, the snow leopards in our zoo are not shy at all. But I was very lucky to see them.
While watching the little ones, I was talking to an older lady and she told me she had come there for aseveral days and never seen the babies. Finally, she called the office of the zoo and asked if the babies were already allowed to go outside and leave their stable. Teh answer was, yes, the door is always open, but Mom decides whether they can go outside or not. 

Last Wednesday I finally had the chance to see the little snow leopards in our local zoo and as I promised, here are some of the 200(!) photos I took.





And it was really hard to spot them: Their enclosure is really large and the rocks have almost the same color as their fur. So, in the end, I had look for their tiny little spots to find them.

That's great, congratulations!!!

Thank you all so much for your kind words. I'm really happy to read  that you like my little Müller.

I'm extremely delighted to tell you that my Müller made it into the Top 10 of the 2012 TBOC.
He was inspired by my favourite soccer player Thomas Müller, top scorer of the FIFA Worldcup 2010. Some of you will remember him, the nice young man who send greetings to his grandparents via TV?
As no German soccer team has qualified for the Olympics, I've decided to send him as a fan to support and entertain his fellow athlets and provide traditional Bavarian beer showers for the (un)lucky winners.
Thomas Müller plays for Bayern Munich, so he comes in his traditonal leatherpants and with his little doggie and no, the beer he carries is NOT for drinking but to give the winners their shower.
To vote for him or one of the other finalists, just go to
http://www.twtba.org.tw/2012_TBOC/contest/contest.asp

The Georffrey's cats are already outside and can be seen by visitors, we just have to wait for the snow leopards.

When they are fully grown, they have the size of a small domestic cat and are already extremely cute, but the babies     

The Geoffrey's cats in our local zoo in Karlsruhe just had two adorable babies and I thought the cat lovers here on TT might want to have a look at them.

And they are not the only baby cats in our zoo: The snow leopards have babies, too. According to the zoo's website, it will take some more weeks until visitors will get to see them, but as I have a yearly ticket you can be sure that I will check their enclosure regularly and post pictures here. 

These dragons and one little elephant are still available for adoption from my show page at the Friends of Teddy Online Show at http://www.TeddiesWorldwide.com

This is Awandamir, OOAK and exclusively created for the Friends of Teddy Online Show.
The preview has just started, if you want to see more of the faboulos creations on sale from July 13th to 15th, please click http://www.TeddiesWorldwide.com

I've already told you in Wiesbaden: Your GilGalad is amazing, and he really deserved his 1st place award.
To all the others here: In the fur GilGalad is even more amazing than on the photo!!!

I would like to show you my latest dragons: Benakir and Rupkanar. They are made from handpainted German mohair and they have a wire running from their head to the tip of their tail, their legs and winga are wirde, too.
So, there are many possibilities to pose and to measure them, the way they stand on these photos, they measure 7cm/2.8" from head (without horns) to claw.
They will be with me at the Teddybärwelt-Show in Wiesbaden this weekend. If you happen to be there and would like to see them in the fur, please come and visit me at stand 32.
And don't worry: Even though they're trying hard, they haven't learned to spy fire so far 

I can only confirm what the others said, I was there as an exhibitor and it was just great.
Fo me, it was the best show ever: After only 5 minutes I was nearly sold out!

It's exspecially sad for us miniature artists:
The Golden Teddies still had two categories for miniature teddy bears, whereas in the TOBY they were cut down to only one category for both dressed and undressed and it is always some kind of riddle for us what the judges might prefer: bears dressed or undressed.