Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

I just snapped a really quick pic of one side of the studio and the ajacent wall that has one of my supply cabinets....if you saw the entire thing it would probably frighten you!  :crackup:

That's amazing Julia, congrats!!!  :clap:

I really loved your new old style ted and your climbing bear both!  Good luck with it.

awww that's so cute!  I have a cocker spaniel.

That was funny

Oh where to begin...my mother and my mother in law both have terrible taste and don't seem to know me at all!  :crackup:

But the worst present I ever got actually was a birthday present.  I was using screws and lock nuts to joint the bears at the time, and I have carpal tunnel syndrome so my husband in his Tim Taylor-esque wisdom thought that a cordless screwdriver would be a good present instead of the sapphire ring I had been BLATANTLY hinting for.  When I first opened the box I couldn't even figure out why he gave me the thing, but after he explained I thought well ok his heart was in the right place...kinda.  Until I used it the first time...it grabbed the mohair on the bear and wound it around the thing so tight...it was so awful.  :doh:  So I gave it back to him and he was thrilled with it!  Come to think of it...over the years I haven't given a lot of presents back to him...hmm.......

Well normally I don't get mad either, but I take a slightly different approach, I put them in my shoes with the ole, I am sure you would feel the same way I do if this happened to you speech.  That always seems to work pretty well.

BUT the good news is I didn't have to.  "Jon" apparently realized how the message sounded and sent me an apology in the interim and offered to make it right.  So all's well that ends well.

Obviously you owned race horses in a previous life!  :crackup:

I recently bought a book called "French Inspired Jewelry."  It is a lovely book filled with grand things and when I discovered they had a shop and a website at www.frenchgeneral.com I was pretty thrilled. On the site you can order kits to make jewelry.  They really are overpriced but I wanted to make a bracelet for my Mother.  I had also bought her a copy of the book for part of her  Christmas present since I enjoyed it so much and thought she would too. I decided I would also make one for a friend.

So I ordered two little tins of beads they put together to make these bracelets from their website.  66.00 for what was probably less than 5.00 worth of notions, but still...it was for gifts and I wanted it to be just right.  They had beautiful large pictures of the finished product on the site.  It was a little hard to navigate though.  Slow loading times even with DSL and a good computer.

They arrived today and much to my dismay one of the kits was the wrong one.  So I right away sent off the following E-mail to them:

"Hi,

I just received my first order from you.  It was #13154, and one item I received was incorrect.  You sent a kit called "My bleeding heart"  and I ordered "My jealous heart."  The one I wanted was green, this one is red.  How would you like me to proceed in exchanging it for the correct thing?

Kelly Dauterman"

I don't think that was rude.  It was to the point and I supplied all the correct information, and I am sure they are busy so I kept it brief.  This was my reply from them:

"We pulled up your order and it shows you ordered My Bleeding Heart:

Invoice # 13154

Jon"

No offer to exchange it, nothing.  I went back to the site and had a look.  On the particular kit I ordered there were four color options with different names.  Each one was clickable, bringing that specific color bracelet up on the screen on its own separate page with nothing else.  Now I would think if an item is on the page alone you would be able to click the add to cart button and get the item you are looking at.  You can't.  What I didn't realize was at the bottom is a really tiny drop down screen that you have to manually change to the name of the thing you want.  It doesn't specify anywhere that you have to do that either.  I am certain I can't be the only person who has ever done that.

But can you imagine replying to a customer that way?  We would all be out of business so fast!  I was shocked!  What has happened to customer service in our country?  It's gotten ridiculous.  This isn't the first time something like this has happened lately either.

Tomorrow I will be phoning them instead of sending an E-mail to sort this out...and believe me we WILL sort it out to my satisfaction!  :twisted:

I wasn't really a child anymore.  I had always wanted a teddy bear when I was a kid and I never got one from Santa.  So when I was 23 I was living with a friend far away from home for the first time and working two jobs on top of making bears, and still barely making ends meet.  Daytons came out with the idea of spending 150.00 and when you presented them with the receipts you could buy this big beautiful white Santa Bear for another 25.00.  My friend from work and I had been at the mall Christmas shopping and they had an entire room filled with Santa bears floor to ceiling in Daytons and I was just in awe and I wanted one SO bad.  But I couldn't even afford the 25.00 let alone spending 150.00 first. 

That Christmas my roommate was going home for Christmas, so I was going to be in our apartment alone.  She didnt' see any reason to have a tree since she wouldn't be there but I was feeling sad and lonely and homesick and I wanted one.  I bought a tree two days before Christmas that was marked down to 3.00.  It was like a big Charlie Brown tree, and it was dried out and raining needles everwhere.  I had no ornaments so I just put stuff on it from around the house.  I had no presents to go under it because my Mothers package had been lost in the mail.  My Christmas evening consisted of going to candlelight service in a HUGE church where I didn't know a soul, and Christmas dinner was tuna salad on a rice cake. 

My friend I had been shopping with that day stopped by on the way out of town to her parents house with this big silver package for me.  When I opened the box, inside was the Santa Bear from Daytons.  She had gotten some of her other friends together to each buy one of their presents at Daytons so they could collect 150.00 worth of receipts so she could get me the bear for Christmas. 

I still have it.  To this day I think it's one of the most thoughtful gifts I have ever gotten.  Even though I was so very poor and had nothing that year, it made my whole Christmas that someone would go out of their way to do that for me.  Since then I have tried to make sure that every year someone who really needs that little extra effort and thoughtfulness gets it from me!  Kinda like a pay it forward thing.  Oddly enough finding out every year someone who DOES need it always presents itself.  In fact this year it did just last week.  The only thing I wish is that I hadn't lost touch with that friend over the years, because she never  knew what she started or how much it meant to me.

Oddly enough I always wanted a teddy bear...and I never got one.  Go figure.

I would still contact ebay and at least let them know that someone is scamming.

Here are mine, they go in order as upstairs, downstairs, mantle and wardian case on the dining room table.  I actually have one in the spare bedroom and a tiny one in the powder room too.  I LOVE Christmas!    Normally I put a tree in the bear room as well, but a couple months ago I built a scale model of stone henge in there so they have that this year instead! Someday I will post pics of my work room...you won't believe it when you see it!

Awww these are so cute, I wish I had seen this in time. 

That was too funny Catherine!  I guess I am easily amused but that site cracked me up so much!  I wish more people would have posted some.

I swear this is hysterical!  Here is mine but you can make your own:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1211090491

This is Marzipan:

That's so cute!  I wish I could have had little ones to make thing.

I did mine yesterday!

I break out in hives all the time from mohair.  It's not that I have an allergy to animals, because that usually involves the dander and there isn't any on mohair because it's no longer attached to the animal.  It's that I have an allergy to wool.  Mohair is a type of wool in it's purest form.  So maybe that's the problem you're having?  I would reccomend taking an antihistamine, and that should clear ya right up.

That was just too funny!  I remember one year mine nearly had a cordless screwdriver stickin outta his ear too!

Janet this is an amazing display!  If I can find the time (and good weather) I will drive up and have a look at it!  Thanks for including my bear!

*Hugs* Kelly

Yay the show is open! There are so many nice bears!

I am thankful for my husband, family, friends and pets.
I am thankful that I am healthy and happy.
I am thankful that I live here and not in a war torn country.
I am thankful that I don't really want for anything, and that I am able to work at something I love as a job.   
 
(And I am thankful that I made it through yesterday with cooking turkeys and figuring out html.  )

Oh I just went and looked now that the room is open!  So many nice things!  If you don't know how to find it, here is a link to the showroom:

http://www.northcountryteddybears.com/O … owroom.htm