[Laura Lynn]

Hi Nicola,  so glad you have joined us!  That is so neat that you have sewn the costumes for the school musicals.  That is quite a skill.  You seem to have quite a lot of experience in the crafting niche!

Yes, nothing like a deadline to push you to finish a project!   Every show I’ve ever participated in, I’ve been working right up until the deadline.  My other artist friends are the same way too!  Do you have a photo of your bear?

Looking forward to seeing your bears!

[Laura Lynn]

Hi Lisa!

Thank you, I hope you had a nice Christmas as well.

That is NOT a dumb question!  For the most part, you should not sell bears (and critters) made from someone else’s pattern.  UNLESS – the pattern designer gives you permission to sell the bears you’ve made using their pattern.

You CAN sell bears you make from my patterns.  You would just indicate on the hang tag and in the listing that it is a Teddy Bear Academy design.  I do sometimes give out patterns made by other designers as they have given me permission to do so.  Those patterns are strictly for personal use.

I hope that helps!  Let me know if you think of more questions .

[Laura Lynn]

Hi Gisele,

Congratulations of 50 years of marriage!  It sounds like you have a lovely family.  I’m so glad you are enjoying the classes and patterns 🙂  I’m looking forward to seeing more photos of your bears!

Hi Rose,

Oh my goodness, I am so sorry about your accident!  I understand about your desire to use eyes that you insert after the head is stuffed instead of safety eyes.  I think the bears look better too when you can both see exactly where you are placing the eyes and also you can sink them into the head instead of having them just lie on top of the fabric.  But yes, it’s a shame that they are then not child safe.

I have had a few collectors purchase my bears for children and I tell them about the dangers of the eyes (and the steel bb’s inside too).  I recommend they treat the bear as they would a porcelain doll.  Once I compare my bear to a fragile doll, they understand a bit more.

I understand about a crowded home!  My bears are upstairs, but I’d love to bring some of my collection downstairs.  My boyfriend has been living in this home for over 30 years and has some stuff (and understatement!)  I do think I’ll be able to bring part of my collection down when I find a good way to protect/display them.  I love seeing how other people display their bears.  I may have to start another post about that!

I do enjoy seeing the knit toys others create.  I can neither knit nor crochet.  I may have to remedy that sometime if only to knit scarves for my bears 😉

[Laura Lynn]

Hi Lisa,

I love that you have been collecting mohair teddy bears since high school.  I didn’t discover them until I was 30.  I’m glad to hear that my videos have been so helpful for you.  I’m sorry to hear that your cancer has returned 🙁  You are in my thoughts… sending many good thoughts your way.

Hi Mindi,

Thank you for your kind words about my bears and about the classes here in Teddy Bear Academy.  I’m happy to hear that they have been helpful for you.  I am looking forward to seeing photos of your bears 🙂

Hi Kathe,

Your idea of writing some B2B copywriting for the teddy bear industry sounds very interesting!  Teddy bear artists are always trying to think about ways to spread the word about collecting artist teddy bears.  Maybe that could be a direction?

There are a couple of ways to be able to sell from your website.  One way is yes, with a shopping cart (which I use), but another is to simply use “Buy Now” PayPal buttons.  I will be going over these very subjects in some upcoming Professional classes.

How is your latest bear coming?  Looking forward to seeing photos!

[Laura Lynn]

I’m posting this for Kathe 🙂

I LOVE teddy bears. They’re basically all over the house.

Mastering the art of bear making is on my bucket list.

I purchased a few books on Amazon, but…haven’t really used them.

I’ve enjoyed your free videos and decided it would be so much easier to learn to do this working with someone.

I’ve made teddy bears before for myself from patterns. Usually Simplicity or McCall’s patterns. But, there’s a big difference between their patterns and the end result and the creation of a professional teddy bear artist.

A bit about me…

I retired early. I’m a registered dietitian. After I retired I started studying copywriting and marketing.

I’m still in the process of finishing coursework. I’ve wondered about possibly sometime in the future doing B2B copywriting for the teddy bear industry. But…have no idea what the market is.

I like the idea of selling my bears. That would be a fun website to build. (I picked up the basics during my copywriting travels. Although, I would need to learn how to add a store with a shopping cart.) So your offer of teaching me the business side of things is very intriguing.

Before I dive in and actually start making a bear…I want to finish one that’s currently in process. I’ll do that over this long holiday weekend.

Looking forward to getting to know everyone.

[Laura Lynn]

Hi Pam,

I will add that to the list of classes to create!  Thank you for your input 🙂

[Laura Lynn]

I’m glad you enjoyed it Pam!

[Laura Lynn]

Hi Lori,

Yes, I have done wired arms and legs as a teddy bear artist.  I will work on creating a video class for that.  I will have it done before the end of 2018.

[Laura Lynn]

Hi Kim,

No worries and I apologize for the delay in responding!  We’ve had a family emergency over here and I’ve fallen a little behind on emails, etc.

[Laura Lynn]

Here is our latest addition -Xena!  We got her as a 5 month old pup from the humane society

• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Laura Lynn.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by Laura Lynn.

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[Laura Lynn]

My marketing plan for the booth has not yet been put into practice, but let me tell you what I plan to do.  As I finish bears, I will take them to my booth to be available for sale as my full website price.  Each time I do that, though, I will also be bringing some of the bears home to be listed on my website.

It will appear that the bears are being sold at the full price, and so the next time a person stops by my booth and sees a bear that they like, they might be more likely to go ahead and buy it as they will have noticed that the bears appear to sell very quickly.

This strategy may take some time…. but I’m very curious to see how it works out!

[Laura Lynn]

Another reason I decided to have a booth in an antique mall is to try to expose my local public to collectible artist teddy bears.

You don’t really see artist bears in person anywhere.  There are some teddy bear shows left, but there are much fewer in person shows now as the costs for artists to attend the shows keep increasing, and it becomes easier and easier to sell bears online.  Shops that carry artist bears are becoming fewer and fewer.  Teddy Bear magazines, although still published, are not found on the newsstands any longer.

I plan to have some literature printed that explains what artist bears are and why they cost so much more than mass produced teddy bears.   I will have it available for free at my booth.  When I get it designed, I will offer that here too in case you would like to spread the word too.

It is important to educate the general public about the existence of collectible artist bears so that more people will want to collect them.  This is my way of trying to help do just that in my tiny corner of the world.

[Laura Lynn]

Last week when I went in to the antique mall where my booth is located, I did not have any new items bring, but I did finally make a sign with my business name and also decided to put some items on sale.  There are only 7 more days until the end of the month, so I’ll have a 20% off sale.

I wanted the Sale sign to look decent, so I printed it out on my color printer and sized it to fit into a frame I happened to have.

 

[Laura Lynn]

Two days later, my Mom died….  As you can imagine, I practically forgot about my booth.

As time passed, I started getting back into “doing things”.   Although  I still did not have any bears done for the booth I did want to make it look better!

I had taken measurements of the shelves back in December.  I wrote them down, but unfortunately lost that piece of paper.  I thought I remembered what they were.

I wanted to add a bit of color to my display and decided to cover some lengths of cardboard with a solid colored wrapping paper.  I went to our local Hobby Lobby (a hobby, craft and home decor store) and got some pretty plastic Easter eggs.  I also dug out a floral garland I owned.

I looked in my home for other items I could add to the display that I was willing to part with.  These items were priced quite a bit lower than the artist bears.  Selling these can help pay for the monthly “booth rent”.

I also thought of creating some pillows… (another lower cost item).  At first I was going to make dog pillows, but then I remembered I lived in the horse capital of the world!  So I decided to start with horse pillows.

I bought some fabric, did some designing and stitched up 4 pillows.

I brought them all to my booth, and there realized that I was wrong on the shelf measurements!  Ugh!  Oh well, What I have will still brighten up the booth for now, and next visit I can bring shelving coverings in the correct size.

[Laura Lynn]

You would think that when I signed up on the wait list for the booth, that I would have started making bears to place there right away so that I would have a nice display.  But I did not.  It appears I need to have a concrete deadline in order to motivate myself.

December is a crazy month of course, so I did not get ANY bears completed for the booth.

I decided to go through my collection of artist bears and choose which ones I would be willing to part with.  I also chose additional teddy bear related things and some bear magazines.

I priced them up and set up my booth on January 2nd.  I should mention that I am not the best at arranging things to make them look good right away.  I have to start with something, and then tweak it.  Here is how the display started out:

 

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