Silly Old Bear....................

I guess I had to start somewhere.......

My oldest daughter asked me the other day~ 'When did you start making dolls Mom?' And I got to thinking.....when was the actual 'first' doll or Teddy I made???? I started cross stitch in grade school.....I made an Eskimo dolly entirely out of one of the Beaver skins my Grandpa Ioerger trapped at his lumber mill.....but I think that was even after I made this 'something'....cause I still have him and he's dated 1989.............So I took Tressa to the wash room and had her get down this horribly NASTY dirty old box.... I thought to myself, Hmmmm~ I can't believe I still HAVE this!'.....I was as particular as a young person, as I am now, and even then, wrote on the box, all sealed round with cellophane tape~ "Packed by RL Brown, July 15, 1987"
So here I am, a smidge over 20 years later, opening this box........................and yup~ hes STILL in there! I cant remember exactly what grade or year it was, but I do remember the circumstances around this fellow's happening.......We had an English assignment to make something that in some way pertained to a figure in literature that we were currently reading about...so I picked "Mars"~ the God of War. I can remember that I stayed up working on him the night before my presentation.....got a bit carried away, and NEVER went to sleep! English was the last subject in the day, and Honestly, cross my heart, If you offered me a million
dollars, I couldn't tell you WHAT I said during my presentation~ I was so tired! I got an A, so it must have been something wonderful! Ha!
I made this Teddy Bear out of brown fake fur~ he has somewhat faded to a rosy pink in some areas....poor guy! He is entirely jointed....I didn't do too bad on him, looking him over today..................Pippin sure does like him! I made him a pair of ultra sued sandals, a gladiator type dress with fake metal mesh for the top......it closes with 2 buttons on the sides.......(flowers, but come on~ who's gonna see them under his armor ~ right?), and a cape
His armor is heavy board, all covered over in tin foil. I used some of Ma's cookie molds that had bears on
them, and pressed the foil in to make his breastplate and helmet decorations. They sure don't make tin foil like they used to~ this stuff is so THICK~ I can hardly believe that they haven't flattened out over all these years!
Golly~ Just look at that helmet! No God of War could be without his head gear...... I can remember I spent weeks looking for something suitable for the red brush thingy at the top~ I still cant remember what it's actually called.......time came down to the wire, and I STILL didn't have anything~ so Ma took me down to the grocery (NO Craft stores then!), and Safeway had these """things""" in the floral shop. I think they're some kind of dried and dyed grass......so I brought them home and then was trying to figure out a way to make a helmet brush out of them......hmmmmmm~ I see some old dried flowers there in the living room~ I'll just go sneak a piece of that green foamy stuff and stick them in there!~ YA! So I wrapped green floral oasis in foil, and poked all the red grass stems in.....it worked, but little did I know that it was still sort of WET, and they FLOOFED~ went to seed! I opened the box today, and can verify, they are STILL FLOOFING! So there you have it, my very first actual made from scratch 'dolly', was in fact a Teddy Bear dressed as Mars~ the God of War!!

Rachael Kinnison, Diamond K Folk Art