Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, ya'll are the sweetest!!!   

and you know what????

my auction finished quite nicely, and apparently, because I connected with my very-long-standing paypal account, there was no hold on my funds!!!!!  :dance:  :dance:

for once I got a break!!!!

bearhugs from one happy camper!

awwwww. . .shucks. . . . :redface:  :redface:  :redface:  how sweet of you - and how good for my ego - seeing as just last year a rather well-known artist bear re-seller told me that  I 'just didn't have the name anymore'  to be selling anything priced over $300.

but I must say for all the frustration it's given me , and the frustration yet to come. . . I'm pleased with my first auction, so far  :dance:  :dance:  :dance:

sooooo. . . let me get this straight. . . until I have a feedback of 100, eBay is going to keep my money for 21 days -

on every transaction?

always for 21 days, or is it 21 days or until the customer leaves good feedback?

is it just good feeedback as a seller,  or does buyer feedback count, too?

this is important, as I'm getting ready to list another piece tonight.   pricks.   maybe I'll just post it under my old user id and fergit the privacy issues. . .

ggggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:  :twisted:

hey folks! thanks for all the tricks, tips and advice.   

Judi, I knew you could change your ID & keep your feedback, but in my case, I wanted to dis-associate myself from my regular eBay feedback. I have a near-perfect feedback of 1300+ even after the 'new' ebay removed 500 for me -(ironically the one bad feedback I have was a retaliatory feedback from a seller who never delivered, precisely the type of feedback that is now impossible)

but I'd rather not share my personal shopping habits and I do a lot of personal shopping on ebay.

kathy, I've been selling on ebay for years (personal stuff - my alligator shoes, my hermes ties, anything, everything to pay the rent, but not my work) and I knew a bit about keywords and stuff, I just lost it completely in my design concept.  I've watched artist bears on ebay for years now, even posted a trio of storks once (one of my shop-wholesale-clients had such a fit that I was trying ebay that I ended the listing after 12 hours).

joanne, I didn't THAT about keywords and the search engines, I thought they search through all the listings.  not that there was many pertitnent key words in the listing. .  .another mistake I made was I'm such a control freak that I turned most of text ino pictures, to ensure the typeface was the one I wanted.  duh.

what I didn't realize was how many different ways there are to view listings, etc.. I will be super careful the next time, you can be sure.

Jane, you just plain make me blush {{{blushing}}}

karen, that 21-day thing REALLY sucks.  I'm hoping since my account is linked to my long-standing paypal account, I'll sneak past it somehow.   ha, fat chance   :crackup:

gawd, don't I feel stupid  :bday:  (that's a dunce cap)  what mean, nasty thing to do.  they'll let me pay $25 to post in no-mans land, making me think it was the 'featured plus' option, but not $19.99 for the 'lesser' option of featured plus.  I hate them.

sharie, thanks for pointing out that there actually was some sort of upgrade, no matter how stupidly placed.

brenda, thanks for making me feel like I'm not the only blonde in the room ;-)

geez, the more I read, both here and on ebay, the more frustrated I get.   I've bought and sold tons on ebay, but didn't think I needed to let the whole world know about my predilection for converse tennies or other dainties by checking my feedback profile.  who would have thought opening a new account would be such a hassle.  now I  hear they can keep my money for 21 days?  I'll ask the winning bidder to send a check.  what freaks. 

and yes, they've billed my account the $50, with no change in the listing.  what do you want to bet I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail to get it back???

this listing was THE most frustrating computer/web project I've ever done, curbed by ebays rules on every front - I set the whole thing up a week ahead of time & it still took me over an hour just to get the listing to post.  grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

as some of you might have seen, I posted my first ebay listing this past sunday.  it's doing ok, but a number of friends and clients have told me they couldn't find my listing.  one sweetheart of a fellow artist (thanks, Cathy) sent me a very nice post suggesting that next time I pay the fee for a 'featured artist' listing.   I figured, why wait, so I went back to upgrade my listing, it went through and I was charged almost $50 (listed in 2 categories... never again) but my listing never changed or moved. 

I contacted live support this morning to find out why, and was told I couldn't have a featured listing until I have a positive feedback of TEN.  how totally stupid.  I've got another ebay account with a positive feedback of over 1300,  but felt it would be more professional to trade under my business name.  they are connected to the same paypal account which is also an ebay owned company.  I'm so pissed.

I'm going to have to buy 10 things before I can list again.  sheesh.       

hey, I was poking around ebay today, and found this

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200809.sht … 9-12093610

which explains that there are indeed TWO versions of ebay Pulse.  in the old version 'artist bears' is list under dolls and bears

in the new version, they are listed under kids toys!   

Jenny, you were right!

lol, but you look good there, and you do it so well  :dance:   :hug:

Jenny, ebay has two different ways to view, the old-style listing & a new one.  I find myself on the 'new style' every once in a while and everything looks and acts completely different.   I loathe the new stlye, but there is usually an 'opt out' selection on uooer right of the page.  it confuses the heck out of me, maybe this is what happened to you?

hey, thanks, folks, for the compliments, but mostly for the tips, suggestions and esp notes on missing links.  I've got most of the problems fixed, including all the links in the studio & narrowsburg section.  there are now ooodles of pictures of my village, street, & shop

shelli & jane, gosh, I wish I did have room for people, but as you can see, I'm bursting at the seams already.  it's a good thing you can't see my backroom  :doh:

matilda, thanks for pointing out my links booboo, I should adopt your motto -  I WILL FINISH WHAT I START  (but websites take sooo long, I'm thinking I should start a blog for quicker updates)

I haven't been around much lately, but I've been busy. . .I finally took a much needed couple of weeks off of studio work - to work on my studio!  I gave it a good shake-up and spring cleaning, but most importantly, added a few new things to the shop end, including a terrific line of educational kids toys called 'Melissa & Doug' and some fun fripperies in the form of 'The Iron Fairies -
https://theironfairies.com/

a shot of my newly-filled shop (nobody thought I'd be able to squeeze a single new thing in here, but I found a whole wall to use!

I spent an additonal week doing a massive website update with most of the links finished, a new 'site map' page that's actually kind of fun, and at my friend Pierre's insistence, a new 'about me' page with a cute 'press' section & an awards page.  I'd appreciate it very much if anyone would take a look and tell me what you think.  I'm not looking for praise here, and you don't have to do it publicly (email link on every page) but I'd like some honest feedback as far as ease of use, broken links, etc.  Pierre says it's still too big and sprawling of a website, but I don't know what else to cut, so I've at least tried to streamline things.

http://kellydeanandco.com/

thanks in advance for even reading this far!

kelly

this is so cool.  HEMA is a Dutch department store. Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.

Don't click on any of the products, just wait and see what happens. And
be sure you have your sound turned up.

   http://producten.hema.nl/

This one will really make you smile.  Go ahead, click on the link

(I got this from my mother, so you know it's gotta be safe  )

A SPANISH Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.'
'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.'

A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?'

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that 'computer' should defi nitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   .  .  .  .  .  . :dance:  :dance:  :dance: .  .  .  .   .  .  .  .  .   .   .  . . .

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.    :crackup:  :crackup:  :crackup:  :crackup:  :crackup:  :crackup:  :crackup:

:clap:  :clap:  :clap: completely gorgeous  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:

terrific piece, judi. . . this is the one I've waiting to see since you had your own personal tiger cuddle this spring.  it was well worth the wait, what a beauty!

thanks, Paula!  I couldn't of said it better myself  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:

:clap:  :clap:  :clap:  congratulations  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:

:clap:  :clap:  :clap: what terrific news!  whatta year for our Judi!  :clap:  :clap:  :clap:

hey donna,

the silicone pellets I've been using are quite different from regular plastic pellets, and as SueAnn mentioned, you can buy the 'baby fat' pellets that they use for reborn dolls (whatta icky term).  I've tried the silicone pellets from edinburgh also, and wasn't very impressed.  I bought mine from a supplier at a show in england and am dreading finding a  suitible US replacement when they run out.  I've ckecked out the 'boob' inserts, too, but haven't tried those yet. 

let me know if you find something good out there.  apparently no one has a decent source for excelsior

oh, what a mean thing to do to me. . . give me another wonderful website full of magical things. . . how'm I gonna live without a forest friends bower, a magical toad home and toys toys toys. . .

I'm supposed to be paying bills, not eying new toys  :redface:  :redface:  :redface: (gosh sometimes I hate having to be a grown up)

ps isn't woodwool a natural product?  stuffs beautifully, packs hard, holds it shape perfectly

tell me tell me tell me do. . .

where are you finding decent excelsior???

last batch I got for edinbugh had changed, it used to be like, wood ribbons, now it's like, you know, excelsior.  I'd like some really fine stuff and can't locate any.  I've tried nashville wraps, and it's ok for big bear, and I've tried taxidermy supples - the stuff is so rough that I'm using as packing beds, sealed in garbage bags and the 'jewelers grade' has turquoise & magenta threads running through that bleed.  I'm running out of space, with 25 assorted pounds of excelsior I can't really use.

where do ya'll buy yours?

honestly, if I could only have one bear, I think it would be this one.  he's so perfect he glows.  remember him, paula, when my ship comes in  :hug:

very well said.   :clap:

gosh, it's silly to let all that lovely stuff go to waste. . . sigh. .  .ok, I guess you can send it down here ;-)

I'm with paula, if I had to sew by hand, I'd quit and find something else to do.  I don't like sewing on a machine, but I like it a whole lot better than sewing by hand (I'd rather glue the whole shebang together, be done with it and start something new, but that method just doesn't work) I used to applique my paw pads on by hand and it took over 2 hours per paw.  I can do it on a machine is 15 minutes. . .theres just too many bears waiting to be made to waste time!

I don't think you need a heavy duty machine - or anything fancy, either (but I admit to a marked fondness for lots of buttons & gadgets - it must be the guy in me)  I sew 4-5 layers of heavy leather using a regular #8 needle and sew the wire into my rabbit ears on my machine, and it's just a mid-range Viking. (you can't do this using a singer needle, though, only shmetz or klasse)

I had no formal training on a machine and frankly thought they were pretty scary at first, but I can tell you that the learning curve is very short, and all it takes is a little practice.  vintage singers are always a sure bet.