Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

Voted already!

Thank you all so much.
And once more congratulations to Berta and Manuela. Your creations are sooo great.

And yes, I was a little bit mad on Saturday when I heard of my nomination.
I had a pretty hard year (don't want to go into details), made no bears for months and nearly gave up bearmaking completely. I just started again with bearmaking about two  months ago.
And when I was making these bears the fun came back, it was the first time after more than a year that I really enjoyed bearmaking again and now I won this beautiful award.
I'm really, really soooooo happy!
And by the way, on Saturday I was so high that I even wanted to send a thankyou-letter to George Clooney. 

Congratulations to you all. :clap:
Your creations are all sooo great, I'm glad I'm not in the jury.

I'm sooo happy, my entry "Dodge & Lexi" one the first place at the Euro-Teddy Award in Essen/Germany yesterday in the "miniature bear dressed"-category. :dance:
I still can't believe it as there were so many wonderful entries in this category.
Here are some pictures of my winning bears.
They measure 9,5cm/3,8 inches  standing from head to toe,, with open mouth and moulded teeth and eyelids.
The knitting- and crochet-patterns for the clothes are from an old crafts-book from the 1930s.
And......my two bears were inspired by the movie "Leatherheads", starring George Clooney and Renée Zellweger.
So I would love to thank them for being such great models and I want to send a very, very special thank you to George Clooney, who is also the director of this beautiful film. 

Congratulations from me too!
And I'm looking forward too meeting you at the Euroteddy!

I just received my envelope and it was soooo great to open all those little presents! I just love everything!
Once again I can only say thank you!

I have a degree in fashion-design and I find that the things I learned there in creating patterns  are very helpful for bear patterns as well.
So, if you have a school for fashion-designers near the place you live, ask if the offer evening- oder holiday classes in pattern drafting.  Most probably they won't teach you anything about teddy bears, but the techniques you're using to deisgn a pattern for a skirt or a blouse are the same that you use for bears.

Or..... just start drawing. If your first bear made with your own pattern doens't look the way you want it to look, don't give up, try again, play with proportions and details until you've got "your" bear.

I don't know if you have heard it already:
Thomas Doerflein is dead.
He was the wonderful man, who raised little polar bear Knut when his real mother wasn't able to take care of him.
I was soooo sad to hear this and now think of poor Knut: At first, he was abandoned by his mother, then he found such a wonderful human daddy who even spend the nights and Christmas holidays with him and now this "Dad" died.
Okay, Knut is not a baby anymore, but he was still very close to his daddy and it was already a problem for him when his daddy was just on holiday for a few days and now his daddy won't come back anymore. 

It's so sad 

Thank you everybody for your warm words.
I'm still working on my pics from Tanzania, I've made nearly 2000, so it will still take me some time to load them on my computer.
But of course I will show you some of my pics.
Just a tiny little question, but do you really want to see everything?
Even the pics of the two lions making baby-lions?

Congratulations Maria, your little bear is sooo sweet, he really deserves his nomination!

Jambo!
Yesterday I came back from Tanzania and I just have to say it was a wonderful trip with a wonderful group.
We saw soooo many wonderful animals, met a lot of friendly people and finally spend some wonderful days on Zanzibar on a wonderful blue Indian Ocean with a beuatiful beach with white sand, palms, beautiful sunsets and all these things. While I was sitting on the beach, enjoying this beautiful scenery, it came to my mind that the only thing that was missing was Jack Sparrow.
Yesterday I came home after an absolutely chaotoc trip from Zanzibar to Germany (more details later) and I was sooo tired that all I was able to do was taking a bath and going to bed.
Todaym after three weeks without any internet, I finally managed to check my emails and what did I read?
My Captain Jack, inspired by Jack Sparrow, is an URSA-Finalist! I'm soooo happy and I was so loud that I'm sure people even heard me in Tanzania.

And I just want to say "Asante sana"(Thank you very much) to everybody who voted for my little bear.

PS: As soon as I've managed to upload all the pics from my trip I will show you some of them and tell you more about Tanzania

In about one hour I will beleaving for the airport, so I say good-bye to all of you for now.
And of course, when I come back I will tell you everything about my trip to tansania and show some pics.

Okay, I know this is absolutely crazy.
It's 4:52 am over here in Germany and as a reasonable person I should be in bed, sleeping.
But I cannot because I'm tooo exited:
Tonight at 23:15 I will be leaving for Tansania and I just can't wait to get there and do all the wonderful things I've planned to do during the next three weeks: Camping in the Serengeti-Nationalpark, hiking in the Usambara-Mountains, relaxing on the beaches of Sansibar and some other nice things. 
And now I'm already up to wait for my flight leaving in about 18 hours. I must be crazy! And why can't time pass a little bit faster?

Maria, congratulations from me, too!!!! :clap:  :clap:  :clap:
I just checked the website and it si so great! Your bears are really amazing and I'M soooo happy for you!

Don't worry, most artists can't accept CC's. Collectors know this and usually they have enough cash with them.

Yes, it is really great to watch a littler poalr bear grow up.
I decided to visit him once a week, my next visit will be Wednesday and if anybody here on TT is interested, I can keep you up to date about little Wilbaer.
And if you want to see some videos:
On the website of his zoo they have now posted some lovely videos:
The link is:  www.wilhelma.de  , then click on: "Aktuelles zu Wilbär" and then "Videos"

Two days ago, little Wilbaer, the baby polar bear from the Wilhelma zoo in Stuttgart made his first public appearance and yesterday I went to the zoo to visit him.
All I can say is: Extremely cute    
And yes, I've made tons of pictures already and here are some of them to give you an idea on how cute little Wilbaer is:

I just have to ask this question after that crazy match against Getafe: Are there any Bayern-Munich-Fans in this Forum?
If yes, how are you doing? I'm just sooo happy, those of you living in Europe might have heard me shouting after Luca Toni's second goal.
Are you still alive?
How are your nerves?
How is your blood-pressure? I bet you don't have any problems with a low blood pressure at the moment  :crackup:  :crackup:

Are you still surprised about our wonderful, great goalkeeper  ? I mean, I always knew that Oliver Kahn is the best goalkeeper in the universe, but what he did at the end of the match was just amazing. 

Oh yes, Flocke is extremely cute!
And now I'm waiting for little Wilbaer from Stuttgart to come out!

She got my vote, too  :dance:  :dance:  :dance:

Hi Maria,
yes, of course I will be taking a camera with me!!!!!
And yes, I will be exhibiting both in Wiesbaden and Rheda and I would love to meet you!

Just the other day I went to the zoo in Stuttgart. Of course I visited the bears first. Well, the two brown bears were already outside, the spectacled bears (according to a sign) still in hibernation, but what about the polar bears?
The male, Anton, was outside, but where was his female Corinna? Okay, I thought, maybe she is having a rest and will be outside later that day, so I decided to visit all the other animal and check back later.
But- Anton was still alone.
And then, a wonderful thought came to my mind: What if they had a baby? That would be a very good explanation for Corinna  not being outside. Okay, there hadn't been any news about a baby-polar bear yet, but maybe they just wanted to keep it as a secret until the first critical weeks would be over? Or simply to avoid a "show" like in Nürnberg where the to female polar bears were so terribly disturbed by press and TV?

And guess what? I was right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :dance:
it was just in the news on the radio! There really is a baby polar bear in Stuttgart!  :dance:
Born on Dec.10th 2007, raised by it's mum and will be presented to the public from in May.
I'm soo happy and sooo excited about those wonderful news!  :dance:
Now I have to get me a zoo-ticket for the whole year and then I will be spending lots of time watching this sweet little baby with his mum!

Oh, I nearly forgot: Here is a link to the zoos website: www.wilhelma.de
Click on "Willkommen Wilbär" or "Aktuelles zu Wilbär" to see the first pictures.

Congratulations to everyone, you've done a great job!

Okay, and here are my non-winners:
"The Sweetest Doctor Alive", 2,2 and 3,8 inches

"The World's Coolest Pirate", 4,5 inches

And a little riddle: Who were ny models for these bears?

I don't have an art degree but a degree in fashion design and I can only say that this is very, very helpful for designing bears as well. So, do your art degree if you want to do it and if you have the chance to do some classes in fashion design like pattern drafting or nature studies then you should do these, too.