Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Katie Reichenbach!
Katie Reichenbach (farmgirl68, #7422) has received a certificate of achievement in Make It Easy for earning a Beginner Level Collect It! Merit Badge!
“I did my beginner level of Collect It! on my first Boyds Bear – Eli Q. Spangler. Here is what I found …
Boyds Bears
Where was Eli Q. Spangler produced?
Eli Q. is part of the “High Fashion Society.” He wears a sweater with an Americana heart stitched on the front and has a star stitched on his right paw. He is also a part of “The Head Bear Collection. This means he is hand-stitched and fully jointed (arms and legs move). I don’t remember how much I paid for it (I know it was more than I should have been spending at the time on a stuffed animal), but today’s MSRP is $36.99. He was introduced in 2005, which is about the time I got him.
What is unique about the Boyd’s Bear production process?
Boyds stuffed bears began production in 1979 as part of a small antique store in Boyds, Maryland (for which they are named), by Gary M. Lowenthal and his wife, Justina Unger. Their first bear was fully jointed and named “Matthew” after their newborn son. I learned that from the start, all the bears were imported from China. The company moved to Hanover, near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1987. In 1993, they introduced resin bears and then increased their product line to include many different items. They also branched out to include other “friends” of the bears. The couple sold the company to Enesco in 2008. Enesco decided, unfortunately, that Boyds Bears should be “put into hibernation” (in other words production was stopped) in 2014.
Do you know how the notion of “teddy bears” got its start?
They are named after Teddy Roosevelt. In 1902, he refused to kill a captured bear. Word spread and Morris Michtom, a Brooklyn, New York, shop owner, along with his wife, created stuffed bears based off of political cartoons that had been spreading. Michtom obtained permission from Roosevelt to call his creation “Teddy Bears.” Of course, people young and old flocked to buy them. The teddy bear was even used when Roosevelt ran for re-election, as his mascot!
How likely is there to be another item just like Eli Q. Spangler?
I could not find any information on how many of these bears were produced; however, even though he is a “retired” bear, I had no problem finding listings for him on line on many different sites. This is probably due to the fact that they were mass-produced in China.
Does Eli Q. Spangler have a personal connection to me?
I don’t necessarily have a personal connection to Eli. I just know that I fell in love with his face. Boyds Bears’ noses are so endearing, you can identify them right away. It is hard not to fall in love with every bear produced. Because I bought him so long ago, I don’t remember what made me choose him over all the others. Perhaps it was the time of year or a holiday.
Are there any clubs or online chatrooms for folks that share a passion for Boyds Bears?
There had been an official fan club called the “Loyal Order of Friends of Boyds!” that was established in 1996. There was a membership fee, which included membership perks, an online newsletter, and admission to a members-only website. Enesco determined 2014 would be the final year for the club. Aside from this “official” club, there are tons of others. Here are just a few. Keep in mind these are not officially affiliated with Boyds Bears:
BearsnBuddies.com
BearMuseum.com
BoydsWeb.com
It was nice to learn about the bears whose faces I fell in love with. I was, however, saddened by two facts: 1) They were mass-produced in China, and 2) They are no longer in business. The company was based in a town only a few hours from my home, so I felt a special connection to them.”
If you’re a fan of argan oil in your skin-care routine, I have a bit of historical (er, biological?) trivia for you.
It begins with the stout seeds of the shrubby Moroccan Argania spinose tree …
Photo by Songwon Lee via Flickr
Seeds that are gathered by … goats.
Photo by Grand Parc – Bordeaux, France via Wikimedia Commons
That’s right, we’re talking about those wacky tree-climbing goats that scream, “Photoshop!”
But there’s no technological trickery at work here.
These goats do defy gravity, and while they are loping about in the limbs of trees, they eat argan seeds.
Can you see where I’m going with this? (Just be glad you get your argan oil from a bottle.)
Here’s the history of argan oil, in a nutshell, according to Michael Graham Richard of Mother Nature Network:
“Argan oil is quite popular these days in skin- and hair-care products, but this is nothing new. Indigenous Berber tribes in the region actually did something similar, though they didn’t get the argan oil out of a bottle that they bought in a store; goats would climb up argan trees and eat the fruits, swallowing whole the core, which looks a bit like an almond.”
Photo by Fred Dunn via Flickr
Okay, we’re all caught up to that point, so …
“This nut would pass through the goat’s digestive system and end up in goat droppings, where it would be collected. To get at the oil inside, you would then have to crack it open with a stone, and grind the seeds inside. The resulting oil was then used for cooking and as a skin treatment.”
Photo by Chrumps via Wikimedia Commons
Now you know.
As with so many modern manufacturing practices, the middlemen (middlegoats?) have been cut from the process of processing argan oil, but that doesn’t stop them from climbing trees to eat seeds.
Watch and laugh:
Welcome New Sisters! (click for current roster)
Merit Badge Awardees (click for latest awards)
My featured Merit Badge Awardee of the Week is … Kristin Sievert!
Kristin Sievert (KESinMN, #6020) has received a certificate of achievement in Outpost for earning a Beginner Level Glamping Merit Badge!
“We’d been camping a couple times with a new tent. But it really wasn’t something I was enjoying, so I decided I might as well trying to “glamp” it up before heading out for a family resort get-together in July.
I started with the bed. I thought maybe something visually appealing might help, so I finished up the quilt speedy quick.
I also dug out a king-sized set of sheets (the sheets had pilled) I kept around for a large supply of fabric the same color—just in case. Since the color matched my quilt, I was in luck. I cut the sheets and modified them to fit my queen air mattress. I sewed the flat sheet directly to the bottom edge of the new fitted sheet.
While I was in the sewing room digging around, I came across some pareos that we had purchased as a possible source of fabric for the kids’ travel quilts. The idea was discarded, but not the pareos. I sewed some long lengths of miscellaneous ribbon from the stash across both ends. I used the ribbon to tie the fabric up using the existing “thingies” at the top of the tent to create a “non-load-bearing wall.” It gave me a way to create a second area in the tent.
My “non-load-bearing wall” was to be my bathroom in the tent. I decorated a “luggable loo” in a complementary contact paper and put that behind the fabric wall.
I felt lighting was always kind of a pain in the wahoo. Digging around in the middle of the night for your headlamp was not fun. So I came across this cheap LED light we got from the bank or something. I tied more ribbon on the light, then again used the “thingies” on the tent ceiling.
The quilt was good, but with a silky sleeping bag, it just didn’t work. Will need to try something else.
The modified sheets worked GREAT! They stayed in place on the mattress and the flat sheet sewn on kept it tucked in all weekend.
I am particularly thrilled with my “non-load-bearing wall.” I was able to play quite a bit with its placement in the tent due to the long lengths of ribbon and where the “thingies” were along the tent ceiling. I left it right in place when we rolled up the tent.
A decorated portable biffy wasn’t going to make or break the experience, but it was a girly thing!
The free LED light was rather funky. If it started spinning, it was like a disco ball effect! I was able to adjust the height with ribbon, so we got it just right. Being able to just sit up in bed and find the light was beyond successful.”
Buy props used in MaryJane’s books and magazine!
5% of profits will benefit www.firstbook.org, a non-profit that provides new books to children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Here’s how:
MaryJane will post a photo and a description of a prop and its cost along with a few details as to its condition here: https://shop.maryjanesfarm.org/MaryJanesCurations. It’s a playful way to be the new owner of a little bit of farm herstory.
