Posts Tagged ‘Teddies’

How to Make Money With Teddy Bears

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

Who can resist a cute and cuddly teddy bear?.. No matter what your age, a teddy bear can soften your heart. I still have some teddy bears from when I was young. They bring back fond memories, and happy times.

Well, I am here to tell you, if you think they have been overdone at craft shows, or online, then you are wrong. Teddy Bears will never go out of style, and the softer and cuddlier the better.

You just have to get a bit more creative with your teddy bears to compete in the craft market. A great way to create beautiful teddy bears, is to find a great pattern, preferably, a vintage pattern, or traditional pattern, you can get these online now from around the world.

Go to the re-use store, the second hand stores, or the thrift shops, garage sales and estate sales, and find those old mink, rabbit and fox coats that people are not wearing anymore. They are usually sold for quite cheap, or sometimes even given away. Even some of the faux fur coats look realistic. Some of the faux furs comes in brilliant colors, for something a little different!

Now sew your teddy bear from these coats, and you will have a one of a kind fur teddy.

Another great way to create teddy bears, is to make them custom for customers. Have your customer find some vintage clothes, or old bed spreads, or old coats that they are fond of, but because of the memories they bring, they don’t want to part with the item. Show them how you can make them into teddy bears, and then they will still have the fabric as a fond memory, and a cute teddy bear to display, instead of old clothes in a trunk!

People still decorate their rooms with teddies, you can display them on the bed instead of throw pillows, or on shelves or on the dresser.

They can make a room a soft place to land at the end of a bad day.. teddy bear patterns online

Scented Stuffed Animals

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

All you need is…

Felt in assorted shades, PVA glue, thread, stuffing, lavender flowers, potpourri, or scented oils for fragrance.

The basis for any of the scented stuffed animals is a circle of fabric. Use a mug to draw around onto a piece of paper to create a pattern piece. Using the pattern cut out two circles of felt. This forms the animal’s head or body, and also makes up the main part of the bag.

Extras can be slipped between these two circles. Extras may be limbs, ears, horns, tails, or hair. Also tuck a loop of ribbon between the two circles to be used for hanging the scented bag up. Pin the ribbon and the extras into place so that the pins point outwards like the spokes of a bike wheel. This makes it easier to sew.

Sew a row of small stitches around the edge of the circle, making sure that the needle passes through all the layers of fabric. Leave an opening at some point on the circle, preferably where there aren’t any extras hanging out. This hole is to stuff the animal.

If you have access to a lavender bush, you can collect all the dead lavender flowers and leave them upside down in a paper bag to dry. You can use these dries flowers to scent your animal bag. Lightly stuff the animal with packing and add some dried lavender flowers. Similarly you can scent the animal with potpourri.

If you are using scented oils to fragrance the animal, drop the oil essence onto the packing before stuffing the animal. The oil can discolour fabric, so adding it to the stuffing means that it won’t spoil the finish of the scented bag.

Lightly stuff the animal and then close up the opening.

To finish, cut out eyes and other features from felt and glue them into place. Animal’s eyes look really good if you cut a triangle out from the pupil. It gives the animal character.

These animals are delightful, you could make your favourite animals, or endangered animals, or animals from specific areas such as Africa, Australia, India or the North Pole.

I’m sure you will have a lot of ideas for making scented stuffed animals, and I bet you have a lot of fun making them too.