WIP Panda

Work In Progress

As stated in my last post

I am making a One Of A Kind Panda

in celebration of my daughter's recent graduation

where she earned her Master of Social Work 

Sorry ... I was going to post this panda for adoption but I 

forgot that I had promised Deb the next panda that I made ...

This Panda is on HOLD for Deb

She has already named the panda "Louie"

This panda will have some new and unique features:

The eyes are glass that I assembled and painted myself,

so they are one of a kind eyes.

I have never made these paw pads before because I knew they would be

time consuming (I don't enjoy needle felting, so I may never make them again).

The paw pads are wool, needle felted, waxed (and I will probably seal them).

I am making something special for the panda to hold or wear:

A koi (fish) in a pocket watch

I sculpted it myself

I hand painted it

This is actually my newest hobby and hand therapy ...

making koi in vintage pocket watch bodies

These are my first attempts at making koi in pocket watches. They are hanging next to my work table.

My hands can cramp and become painful after many hours of bear making

I find that kneading and sculpting with clay is great exercise for my hands

and a wonderful creative outlet for my imagination.

This came about quite naturally after recent outing at my local Antique Market where I came home with some broken pocket watches. As soon as I saw the watches I immediately knew that I had to sculpt koi in them. We used to have koi as pets that lived in a giant tank in our "dining room". So I spent many happy years watching them swim in our house.

I had almost forgotten how much I loved to sculpt until I started taking classes with my friend, Kathy Davis, who is one of my favorite artists and a great teacher. (I posted the projects I made in her classes on my "Next Stop FantasyLand" page ... see link above or in right-side column. I also have more Koi photos and details on that page)

Now when my hands start to hurt I just take out some polymer clay and let my imagination soar.

Custom Teddy and Bunny ... and an announcement

Custom order for Penni

Please CLICK HERE to see more photos of Penni's teddy and bunny

Announcement

My brilliant daughter is graduating on May 22, 2015

with her Masters of Social Work

When she graduated with her two degrees (Sociology and Women's Studies) in 2011

I created a special teddy in her honor ... which I then put up for adoption and

gave my daughter the proceeds 

I will be doing the same for this graduation ... 

I am currently designing a panda!

 It will be one of my large pandas!!!

I will be posting it for adoption when it is completed ...

if you are on my Mailing List you will 

receive an Adoption Invitation.

Damaged Teddy's New Face ...

To see the photo journey of this teddy's repair please see the previous post (April 27)
or CLICK HERE

Oh no !!! Poor teddy ...

is in desperate need of repair because a frisky puppy mistakenly thought it was a puppy toy.

Yes, if one of your Kathy Myers' Mink Bears is ever in need of repair ... please please return it to me rather than giving it to someone else to repair.

So this poor little teddy is my next project

Fortunately, or unfortunately, all of the damage was to the teddy's head. The most obvious solution would be to make a new head, ears and neck...

 but when I searched for the mink scraps from this teddy I could only find the scraps in the photo above and these scraps seem to be a slightly different shade of brown. (My customer did not want the scraps returned so I just added them to my scrap bin ... after over 25 years of mink teddy creations my mink scraps take up several boxes). So I'm not totally convinced that these are the scraps from this same teddy. Yes, I could still make the head and neck using this slightly lighter mink ... or another solution would be a "face transplant" with white mink. I would cut out the damaged face and sew on a new white (or lighter mink) mink face. The advantage to that is that I would not have to dismantle the entire bear just to replace the head. Of course, I've never done this before so it would be a new challenge.

What will I do? Since I am not convinced that these scraps are a perfect match I think I will give the white face a try first. I actually really like my white or lighter faced teddies.

Would you like to see how this teddy #3587 looked when I finished it in August of 2014?
CLICK HERE

Examples of my teddies with lighter faces:

Please go to my May 1st post to see this damaged teddy with it's new face ... CLICK HERE

Custom Teddy

#3615 for Jan

Please CLICK HERE to see more photos and details of this teddy bear

WIP ... next custom order

This is actually a continuation of a previous order ... this is bear #2

To see bear #1 please click here ... "Striped Pajamas Teddy"

I'm working with the remainder of the minks:

There is still a lot of the unusual mink to work with ...

... but quite a bit less of the mink stole which was already rather small

Now the question is ... how did I make the first teddy?

Since it was a very unusual OOAK (one of a kind) teddy that I made a few months ago I am so happy that I made a photo journey of it's creation ... Click Here to see how I made the first teddy.

To see more of the making of this teddy ... Click here.

Five Custom-made Teddy Bears

Finally finished with this custom order ... it took a long time

but as you can see, it was worth it because

each teddy is beautiful !!!

Please CLICK HERE to see photos of each teddy bear