Who exactly is The Bear Essentials^© you may wonder?

It's simply me ... Claudia.
Hello there! -- I'm pleased to meet you too!  :-)

My business holds its DBA License with the city of Buffalo, in the State of New York.  I've been in business for 17 years now and actively sell a large portion of my bears through craft fairs.

I have loved teddies since the first time I fell off my bike and scraped my knees.  My Teddy Bear, Winston, heard all about it through my tears.  What a wonderful friend he was and is -- I still have him!  Since then, I've been collecting teddies and now have them throughout the house on their own chairs or shelves.

I have always loved to sew and my love for teddy bears just seemed to flow into making my own bears ... and ... each bear IS personally made by me.    I now have an industrial sewing machine that I use for all the bears and just love it!

My puppet-bears are adaptations off of a pattern designed by "Diane" © 1980 of Endicott, NY, which I found years ago at a garage sale and contained within a plastic zippered baggie!   How I would love to find her, share my stories and let her know how she helped inspire joy to so many lives!

My bear-puppets are all double-stitched which is a great asset for my customers.   Most bears on the market are simply single-stitched BUT,   durability is important as my bears are made for hugging so the double-stitching provides for their long life span which in turn allows for them to be handed down from generation to generation.

The craft fair shows where I display my bears have brought a following of customers who watch for my booth regularly.  Word of mouth about my business has actively spread to keep my accountant a very happy person.  For me, the joys have come closer to my heart rather than my purse.

My bear-puppets have been adopted by clowns who use them with their work, by teachers in schools, by doctors for their little patients, and by people just like you and me who love bears.  Over the years, I've met so many customers who've previously adopted my bears and each one seems to have a funny or touching story to share with me about their bear:

At my Rochester, NY show, my female customer said she had bought a bear-puppet for her dog (!) the year before.  She made a special effort to find me again to tell me that her dog, Bear, was now wonderfully behaved when she takes "his puppet-bear" along in the car.  If she doesn't take his bear, he becomes a terror during the trip!  I loved that customer!

I donated a dozen of my bear-puppets to a school for the handicapped.  Not too long after that, a few weeks after Christmas, I received a lovely letter from the Administrator.  She wanted to tell me that a young boy spoke for the first time to one of the bears!  I cannot tell you how wonderful that made me feel, nor how rewarding that was for me.  God works in mysterious ways, but His light was shining on that bear!!

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read and learn about my business.  I'm always available to answer any specific questions you may have about the bear-puppets or about my business code of ethics and standards.  Feel free to send me an email with your questions or comments!

For those of you who are local and interested, I'll be displaying my bears at the upcoming craft fairs listed below.  Stay tuned to this page because I'll continue to provide you with a list of my future shows in case you would like to stop by my booth, say hello and see the bear-puppets in person!

The Bear Essentials
S-4145 Burke Parkway
Blasdell, New York  14219

Copyright © 1999~2000
The Bear Essentials.
All rights reserved.

Site designed and maintained by
Victorian Via Von^©
for The Bear Essentials^©