Friends & Favorites
The makers, craft organizations and galleries we've connected with over the years — a few of our favorite sites, recommended personally.
Since we opened the Bear Den in 1991, we've had the good fortune of meeting wonderful makers all over the country — most of them at craft shows, where Lois & Frank have been exhibiting since the late 1990s. A few of those friendships turned out to be online friendships too. Here are a handful of our favorite sites from friends along the way.
The Craft World
As a small, hand-made business, we feel most at home among fellow artisans. The American Craft Council is the national home for American craft — a community of makers who believe that hand-worked things, in every medium, are worth celebrating. It's a reminder that the skills in our sewing room belong to a tradition that goes back centuries.
Precision We Admire
Frank has always had a weakness for fine watchmaking — the kind of watch where every single component is a small work of art. If you share his fascination with complicated timepieces, take a look at the richard mille replica pieces in the gallery he follows. It's modern watchmaking at its most ambitious, and we love that these timepieces are built to be taken apart, understood, and admired.
One-of-a-Kind Treasures
Of course, the spirit of a handmade, one-of-a-kind treasure doesn't stop at teddy bears. Whenever we want to browse work from independent makers around the world, we head to Etsy — a marketplace full of small workshops and one-of-a-kind finds, very much in the same spirit as the bears we sew.