An Un-bear-ably Good Craft: Celebrating National Teddy Bear Day
Everybody’s favorite day of the year is going to be here soon! Believe it or not, it’s not the beginning of regular season football, and it’s not Labor Day either– it’s National Teddy Bear Day taking place on Sept. 9!
In observation of the grand holiday, I am tasking everyone to take their teddy bears on an adventure. I’ll be taking my own teddy bear, a polar bear named Flower, on an adventure to meet the animals of my house. Maybe she’ll even come to work with me!
“But, Sam, what should I do if I don’t have a teddy bear?” I’m so glad you asked!
I’m here to teach you how to make your very own plush teddy bear. But first, a history lesson!
You may know that teddy bears get their name from the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. But who decided to name a stuffed bear after a president? The story surprisingly starts with Washington Post political cartoonist Clifford Berryman.
Berryman got wind that Theodore Roosevelt was on a hunting trip in Mississippi. During this trip, Roosevelt was told to shoot a bear that had been caught and tied to a willow tree. Roosevelt, an avid hunter, refused to kill the bear as he saw it as unsportsmanlike behavior.
Back at The Washington Post, Berryman used the situation as a cheeky way to comment on Roosevelt’s indecisiveness over a Mississippi boundary dispute. At the time, Louisiana and Mississippi were in conflict over the ownership of the waters surrounding the states, which held valuable oyster reefs. The dispute wasn’t settled until it was taken to the Supreme Court in 1906, four years after the initial dispute began. In the cartoon, Berryman chose to represent the full grown bear as a much smaller, cuter bear.
Rose and Morris Michtom, Brooklyn candy store owners, saw the bear in the paper and decided to make a stuffed bear toy called Theodore Roosevelt. This bear sat in their candy store window before the couple decided to make smaller bears called (with the permission of the president) Teddy’s Bear.
The Michtom’s soon founded the Ideal Toy Company, which became one of the largest toy companies in the 1940s and 50s. The original teddy bear made by the Michtom’s can be seen at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
With that history lesson in mind, let's make our own plushie for National Teddy Bear Day!
You will need:
Fabric
Buttons
Stuffing
Scissors
Needle
Thread (match your thread with the color of the fabric if you want your thread to blend in!)
Pins
The Steps:
Step 1. Decide how big you want your plushie to be. For a small plushie, you’ll need about a 10 in x 10 in square. Fold your fabric in half with the back of the fabric facing out.
Step 2. Draw any shape you’d like on the fabric! Let your creativity take over; you can make a blob, a ghost, or an animal! Make sure your shape fits within how much fabric you have. If you want to make it easier to sew, avoid corners and make your shape more circular. I chose to make a rhino!
Step 3. Cut your shape out of the fabric. You should now have two identical separate pieces of fabric. Unfortunately, I accidentally cut off the top horn so now she’s an elephant!
Step 4. Line up your pieces of fabric. Make sure the backside of the fabric is facing out (you will turn the fabric inside out eventually). Pin the two pieces together. I chose to forgo the pins for mine because of a more difficult shape!
Step 5. Sew the two pieces together; take the pins out as you go. This can be hand-sewed or sewn with a machine! Make sure to leave a small hole for your stuffing.
Step 6. Before putting the stuffing in, turn the fabric inside out.
Step 7. Add buttons for eyes. If you have extra scraps of other fabric, you can add a mouth or any other accessories you’d like!
Step 8. Fill it with stuffing.
Step 9. Sew the hole closed
Step 10. Enjoy!
Step 11. Repeat Steps 1-10 to give your stuffed animal a buddy.
Eden the Elephant and Flower say make sure to celebrate National Teddy Bear Day!
