Real Fur Teddy Bears

I hand craft original ursine personalities like these from rescued animal pelts.  I am quite happy to work this amazing feat with your fur or mine.   Before I start work on cutting pattern pieces from the pelts, I condition the skin side of the fur with my own blend of oils, specially formulated for me by Angela Bickford of Carolina Mountain Soaps.  This process kills mold spores and bacterial contamination, makes them smell clean and leaves them soft and pliable. 

Once the conditioning process is complete, I trace and cut out pattern pieces from the fur.  Next the entire bear is completely lined with muslin and carefully hand stitched together to ensure that it can stand up to vigorous hugging.  All my real fur bears have wobble joints and are heavily weighted with steel shot and/or glass pellets for a heavy-in-your-hand, life-like movement and feel.  Add hand blown German glass eyes, real suede paw pads, each with my trade mark silver star, as well as carefully hand sculpted and trimmed snouts and you get the most endearing teddies possible.  Don't believe me, take a look below for yourself. 

*There are lots of pictures on this page and they take a while to load, so please be patient, I feel sure you won't be disappointed if you do.

**Please note that all of the bears on this page are sold but don't despair.  I'm making more just as fast as I can.  Because of the nature of real fur, each of these re-animated teddy bears is a one-of-a-kind piece.  That said, if a particular bear appeals to you, I cannot make you one that is identical but a bear cut from the same pattern and similar fur can be close. 

Featuring Emily Opal

Emily Opal is a miniature recycled, real fur teddy bear made from a fifty year old, full length ermine coat. This 3.5" ursine personality is fully wobble jointed, with polyester fiberfill and weighted with steel shot shavings for a heavy-in-your-hand life-like feel.

Emily has black, hand blown German glass eyes. She has two Australian fire opal tear drops below her right eye and a heart shaped Australian fire opal on her chest. Her nose is embroidered with size 8 Finca pearl cotton. Her paw pads and inner ears are made of butter soft pig skin suede.

All of my real fur bears are one-of-a-kind designs that are extremely labor intensive. Each of these bears presents its own challenges, but the smaller they are, the more difficult they are to make. It is virtually impossible to get your fingers inside any bear smaller than four and a half inches. For bears that small, I work under magnification with surgical tools. I have been able to successfully make many real fur bears as small as 3.5". This particular bear took four weeks of my time to do all of the following:

disassemble the coat from which she was made
clean and treat the skins
trace the pattern on the skins and lining
cut out the bear and line it
stitch it together
turn it right side out
sculpt the face
embroider the nose
set the eyes, trademark star and attach the ears

A Mother Daughter Pair

These two bears were made for Anna and her daughter Cheryl from Anna's Muskrat stole.  They will soon be winging their way off to their new home  in Tidewater, Virginia. 

Anna wanted her bear plain and simple, "nekid" but Cheryl was very specific about what her bear wear.  The hat, collar and topper for the magic wand were all made from a purple cotton fabric with a celestial print.  I embellished  them all with gold embroidery thread and beads.  The wand is a coil of gold memory wire topped with a star that sports a clear crystal center, exactly as ordered.

Rocky's Story

I have been making teddy bears for ten plus years.  In that time, I have taken pride in the stories I hear back from my customers that tell my bears often bring comfort and smiles to their owners.  As many of you already know from previous visits to this web site, I have a son who served overseas in the Middle East.  That son is now home safely reunited with his family.  As grateful as we are to have our son back with us, we never forget that there are many families who still have loved ones serving in harms way over seas.  

Last year, the mother of an Air Force doctor bought a bear to send to her daughter who was serving in Iraq.  Yesterday, I had a visit from that same mother telling me a story about her daughter and the bear I had made for her.  Later that evening I received the following letter from her daughter along with the pictures below.  I am humbled by the knowledge that my bear was able to make such an impact.

Vicki of Jacksonville, Florida

These seven bears were made for Vicki and her family.  All the grey bears were made from one silver mink stole.  The one brown bear was made from a mink collar that used to belong to Vicki's sister.

Vicki came to collect the first four bears but had to mail her the three last.  Before I shipped them, I took this picture of the group and the detail shots with the black background below.  The shots with the green background were taken by Vicki after she got the last three in the mail.

This fellow has an air brushed snout, blue eyes and black suede paw pads and inner ears.

This bear has a silver nose, blue eyes and grey suede paw pads and inner ears.

These two guys both have the same colored and shaped noses, similar placement and shape of ears as well as similarly trimmed snouts.  The grey bear is the only one in the whole group with bent legs.

This bear was my favorite of the bunch.  I liked his black eyes, silver nose and grey suede paw pads and inner ears.

This bear has a broader face than the others.  To that, add a shaved snout, high placed ears and a broad nose and you emphasize that broad head.

This bear was the only grey bear with both a black nose, eyes and suede paw pads and inner ears.

This last bear was the only one not made from the silver mink stole.  He is distinctive and stands out in this fair haired crowd.

Harry of Hendersonville, North Carolina

This bear was one of two ordered by Harry of Hendersonville, North Carolina for his daughters.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of teddy number 2 before he left for his new home, but just this week, I got a message from one of Harry's daughters, Chris.  She sent me the sweetest message plus the added bonus of pictures of her bear.  It just made my day, which, up to that point had been pretty lousy. 

First Bear

Chris's Bear

Kathleen of West Virginia

The bears in the collage below were ordered by Kathleen of West Virginia for her children.  They were each cut from fur that used to belong to her mother.

Melvin is made from a recycled ranch mink coat that had horizontal stripes of champagne and white mink.  The coat was grotesque, but Melvin with his waxed nose is not.  This bear is available for immediate adoption at a cost of $300.

This bear was a flight of fancy for me.   I acquired the fur, a small scrap of printed cow hide, as a part of an order of suede.  When I saw it, this bear appeared in my imagination, complete with hat.   He is definitely a one-of-a-kind bear who is already sold, but I thought you might like to take a look at him anyway and let me know what you think of him.

Licorice is made from Russian sable.   This charmer has a heavily waxed nose, blue eyes and black suede paw pads and inner ears.   This bear is sold but another could be made for you from the same fur in a similar design.

At an impressive 6.5" and heavily weighted with steel shot, this Viking is impossible to ignore.  He has glass eyes, a heavily waxed nose and is wobble jointed for a life-like feel and flexibility in your hand.  This bear sold.

Please note, any group picture like the one above is a collage.  To view a larger version of the whole collage, click on the text.  To view a larger version of any individual picture in the collage, click on that  picture.

Meet Emily, a 3.5", white mink teddy bear with emerald accents.  She was made and named for my newest grand niece who, brilliant darling that she is, managed to get herself born on my birthday. 

$350 (not including gem stones)

E-mail me for gem stone details and price quotes.

This ursine charmer has hand blown German eyes in green to match her birthstone trail of tiny emerald tears and her emerald heart tucked neatly under her chin where a teddy's heart ought to be.  In the bottom right corner of the pictures above, I have included a picture of another Emily.  This one has gem stone tears and heart like her sister, but hers are amethysts instead of emeralds.  There is a ruby and an opal Emily in progress.

If you like this bear, a similar one could be made just for you.  All you need to do is e-mail me with the details of your preferences and we can discuss the details.

Gabriel was made in honor of the birth of my first grandson, Gabriel.  He measures a diminutive 2.5 inches short.  He has hand blown German glass eyes in amber.  His fur is baby recycled from a whole animal stole.  He has black suede paw pads, an embroidered and lightly waxed  nose and wobble joints for that loose, life-like movement that is a trademark of my real fur bears.

$500

The story of Ruby and Mona

Two charming and talented young women, one an artist and the other a musician, were lucky enough to have had a guardian angel in the person of their grandmother, Mona Ruby.  These two bears were made from her silver mink stole as cuddly reminders of the love and support she never failed to offer her granddaughters.

Cinder and Charleroi's Story

Now living a life of leisure in Etowah, North Carolina,  Cinder and Charleroi pass pleasant days in the company of Beverly, her husband Cliff and their two cats.

These two bears were part of a special order for a fellow artist, Beverly.  They were both made from the same black mink and suede coat.  The body of the coat had alternating vertical strips of black suede and shiny black mink.  The sleeves were generally cut from just the mink. 

At Beverly's request, I made two bears with completely different personalities.  Cinder, top right, was made from the sleeves and has amber eyes set in her coal black face.  Only 3.5", this shy and demure teddy is dwarfed by the 6.5", Charleroi (Charles the King in French) who was made from the leather and mink body of the coat.  

Both bears sport over-sized, very broad noses but Cinder's neatly stitched black one is dead plain next to Charleroi's flamboyant crimson nose styled from glitter embossed velvet overlaid with silver metallic and cotton embroidery threads.  His paw pads and red leather eye lids all match his impressive proboscis. 

Rufus, Matilda and Benjamin,
the Story of 3 Bears

An extremely talented artist friend of mine named Susan had a collection of odd fur pieces.  She commissioned three bears from this hodge podge of skins and I got to work making a family of bears, hoping to make each distinctly different.  This was no small task as the skins were an interesting mix of textures, similar but subtly different colors, length of pile and thickness of skin. 

One piece was a whole mink pelt.  The skin on this piece was thick and stiff with relatively long fur in color shadings from beige to white under the chin.  I worked long hours softening the stiff pelt with oils and even longer hours figuring pattern placement so that Rufus would have a white streak starting over his left eye that extended back over the top of his head and down his back and left leg.   I left his chin whiskers long, trimming only on the bridge of his oversized nose to give him a grizzled and definitely serious Papa Bear look.

For Matilda, I chose a more delicate face with a smaller, more lady like snout that I trimmed right down to the skin all the way around and then embroidered this Momma Bear a triangular shaped nose and down turned mouth.   She was cut from a mink collar with relatively short, soft fur in a uniform champagne shade only slightly different in color from Rufus. 

Last, but a long way from least, I cut Benjamin from a collar that had extremely fine fur with very little undercoat.  This collar was a lighter shade of beige than either Rufus or Matilda and the skin was nearly paper thin and wonderfully stretchy.  That elasticity made it possible for me to cut, stitch and turn teeny tiny pieces that produced finished limbs about the diameter of a pencil for this 3.5" baby bear.   To be sure every one could tell who his daddy was, I gave Benjamin a diminutive version of Rufus' nose and left his snout untrimmed.  Don't forget to click on his nose to see a close of him. 

Posed in this family grouping, it is clear that all these guys need is a blonde with poor impulse control and an appetite for porridge to make their way into story book fame.  It is, however, appropriate to note that Susan, being the generous woman she is, shared Rufus with her brother keeping mother and baby together in her home in Brevard, North Carolina.

I mentioned that Susan is a talented artist and she most certainly is.  I asked her to make me a name tag to wear to shows and here is what she came up with.  It is a hand painted  porcelain disk and I just love it!  To see the wonderful detail of her brush strokes, be sure to click on this picture.

In addition to that, she and her husband have recently embarked on a new path with Intarsia, a wood mosaic art that originated in medieval times.  Again, at my request, Susan and her husband collaborated on this sign for me.  Like the name tag she painted for me, the bear on the sign is a Mickey bear.  If you like what they did, you can view more of their Intarsia pieces at the Carolina Mountain Artists Guild Shop on Main Street in Hendersonville, North Carolina or by going to the shop's web site.

Named for a character in Disney's animated feature, Mulan, this panda is happily stealing hearts with Linda and her family in Fairfax Station, Virginia. 

$250

Of all the real fur bears I have made, this one speaks to me the loudest. There is just something about this guy’s face that touches my heart in a way that none of the others have.  I named him Aslan which means lion in Turkish.  He started out in life as a mink stole and a darker colored mink collar.  

Susan found him in the Carolina Mountain Artists Guild shop on Main Street in Hendersonville, fell in love, bought him and took him home where she renamed him.   Boris, née Aslan, stands 6½” tall and is currently residing in Columbia, South Carolina, with Susan and her husband Robert.  At Christmas, they sent me this perfectly wonderful card with her re-named darling perched happily in a tiny rocking chair, complete with Santa hat, in front of the fire place in her doll house. 

$250

Some More Real Fur Friends...

Maviş (Turkish for Blue Eyes) went to live with a family in the Richmond area.

$165

This bear was given as a Welcome to the World present to the daughter of Debbie's friend in New York

$165

Midnight Storm, made from a vintage Persian Lamb coat and is one of the few real fur bears still available.

$200

Darcy went home with a lady in Austin, Texas.

$250

Bem Beyaz (Stark White in Turkish) found a home in our nation's capitol.

$200