Bear Essentials & Silver Bear Centre

Auction finds are a major source of inspiration for designers at Steiff. They follow the Teddy bear market closely, attending auctions and collecting catalogues – always on the lookout for wonderful rarities to reintroduce or reinterpret for our devoted collectors. The inspiration for Johann was found in an country auction. He had everything  collectors – and  designers – look for in a classic Teddy. First of all, his face is truly inviting and endearing. He has a hand stitched nose and sparkling black eyes. His nose is hand-stitched with black floss in the traditional Steiff style. His body, too, is very typically “Steiff”. Discover Johann – just the way our auction watchers did – and we think you’ll fall in love with him, too.
I know we here at Bear Essentials have.

Yes we have got a winner! We are delighted for Cavan Kids to adopt Freezy for Christmas and he will meet up with his old friend Leo. It is the entry who got the most public votes and this was their story:

teddy bear picnic

Every year we visit Anke at Bear Essentials! All of the Kavan Kids Montessori children visit and get to do lots of interesting things. This year we noticed a sad bear on the kitchen work top. Anke explained that Leo the Bear had been sent to South Africa to someone who had returned him. Leo was then left in the rain on Ankes door step and Ankes dogs ripped open his parcel and dragged him around. Leo did not want to go back to South Africa nor stay at Ankes. Anke asked Kavan Kids Montessori would we adopt Leo! We were all delighted! Leo now sits on a shelf in the Montessori looking after all the children here. He has come on Teddy Bear Picnics and has had a new Graduation Gown made to attend our Graduation. He sat proudly on the stage with all the children. Leo is now a happy Bear and is very much loved…..

CONGATULATION Cavan Kids Montessori!!!

Thanks to anyone who took part and we like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and hopefully there will be a little bear under your Christmas tree.

We will add the last votes tonight and announce the winner of our competition by tomorrow morning. We would like the winner to come along and pickup Freezy themselves so that we can take a photograph of the new owner. I am sure Freezy will be very happy wherever he goes. Good luck to all of you and thank you for voting.

Yes this is what you are waiting for.You can vote now for your favorite entry to our Freezy Teddy Bear Competition. There are 2 ways you can vote either under the image you want to vote for or under this post – but you have to enter your vote under comments. Just one vote per email.
Enter vote for ……….(the name of the person/group) and one sentence why you vote for them. Votes who are not send in this format are not counted for. We try and publish your votes every evening. Voting will end on Saturday the 11th of  December which is our Gingerbread House workshop day here at Bear Essentials.
Ending time is 11am and we will announce the winner during our workshop in the afternoon and on the blog on Saturday evening. So what more is there to say than to thank you all for your entries, to wish everyone good luck and that Freezy is excited to find out where and with whom he will be spending Christmas 2010.
IMPORTANT: make sure to click at the end of page to see our first entries and than vote!!!

Hi my name is Clodagh, this is my dog called Patch. He is very old and needed to go to the teddy hospital and with Ankes help he is now looking like new.
He is my favourite toy and I play with him everyday.

You and your friends can vote for this image & story after the 5th of November – vote Clodagh Reilly

The entry with the most votes is going to adopt teddy Freezy for Christmas and will give him a new home forever after.

My name is Ciaran Colbourne and I am 7 years old.  Once me and my dragon Draego planned to climb a tree, so we did it on Monday evening.  When we were on the way down I tripped.  When I fell off the branch, Draego just caught me and put me on the ground.  I was really terrified!!!!!  He saved my life!!!!

You and your friends can vote for this image & story after the 5th of November – vote Ciaran Colbourne

The entry with the most votes is going to adopt teddy Freezy for Christmas and will give him a new home forever after.

Hi, I am Jamie Colbourne, and I am with my teddy-monkey, Rusty in the photograph.  Rusty has been my pal for as long as I can remember.  Let’s go back to the time that we went to my uncle Ian’s farm…..

On the first morning that I was there, I woke up and felt something cuddly on my arm.  Phew, it was only Rusty.  Later on during the day, Rusty and I were playing in the yard and we found two sheep feeders. Rusty sat on one and I stuck my head through another.  Suddenly the feeders started to roll down the hill.  Rusty and I quickly jumped out.  The feeders rolled to the bottom of the hill, crashed into a barn and fell apart.  “Oooops”, me and Rusty said!

You and your friends can vote for this image & story after the 5th of November – vote Jamie Colbourne

The entry with the most votes is going to adopt teddy Freezy for Christmas and will give him a new home forever after.

To design teddy bears and creating their own characters is just one way of expressing our creativity. Like an artist painting a picture or a potter building a vase it gives us the opportunity to invent, to form, to produce something new and unique. The innovative product is our reward and for me as a teddy bear artist the prize is that people like my creations and buy and collect them.

But a real thrill for me is when other people can experience the same then I do.

It is great when you can pass on your skills to people and it is exciting if they give you fine feed back on their experience.

A mum who took part in a course with her daughter wrote back to us with words like “We were impressed with our efforts” – “We were trilled and chuffed and didn’t think we had the confidence and skills to do such a great job.” Isn’t life to be there to experience it in full? To be able to do so we have to learn all the time and at all stages of our life.

This little girls is not even 6 years of age and embroidering her newly made teddy bears nose. And the boys get really enthusiastic about sewing. The ladies in the button picture show off their bears at a course I delivered in An Grianan in Co.Louth this August 2009.