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Eat Cake! bears and other little ones are one-of-a-kind mohair artist bears. They are all designed and created from start to finish by me, Barbette Jensen. Each one has hundreds (and hundreds) of little stitches. Eat Cake! bears have found their way into homes with bear lovers worldwide. I have regular collectors in the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Germany, Russia, France, Estonia, The Neterhlands, and of course the USA who have adopted my bears. Thank you everyone who has an Eat Cake! bear (or elephant) in their home.
I use quality mohair that I age before I design the bears. Each one is then individually hand-dyed with my own mixture of dyes. The brightly colored bears are dyed with my own mix of koolaid colors! Some of my bears go through multiple dyeing steps to get just the right color.
Each piece goes through a five-step process to give them that old loved toy look. Each ~8" bear takes an average of 10 hours to complete. They go through many time-consuming steps to reach their wonderful aged look. They are entirely sewn by hand which I think gives them a little soul. Each is lovingly double-stitched. They are then aged again on the backside of the mohair before continuting onto the next step. After they are filled and jointed they are then aged once again with the finishing touches to give them the just found in the attic look.
They are jointed with five-way cotter pin, some of the bears have a wobble neck joing. I use vintage trim such as ribbon, pins, brooches, and Cracker Jack prizes. I also use vintage doll clothes for the dressed bears. The eyes are vintage shoe buttons, glass teddy eyes, MOP buttons, or hand-painted glass eyes.
Besides being filled with love and care, the little ones are filled with 100% wool and wood wool. For vintage weight their little tushies are filled with steel shot, fine gravel. Each comes with their own Eat Cake! hang tag.
I use my grandmother's vintage glass head pins to pin together the little guys. The paint bowls I use are little saucer bowls my grandfather used with his coffee in the morning. Every bear I complete I feel that a little of them are in each one. This is very special to me.
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