My parents owned an antique shop and were avid antique collectors themselves so I grew up surrounded by lots of beautiful and interesting treasures. I loved the toy cupboard which was filled with old teddy bears and soft toy animals in amongst these was a tiny miniature Schuco teddy bear made in the 1930s. I was fascinated by its size and charm and it was this little chap that inspired me to begin making miniature teddy bears.
My husband Simon then joined me and developed new techniques and skills he designs and sculpts all the boots and shoes making his own cast metal moulds.
We now create different sizes in teddy bears.dogs,rabbits and other characters.
We aim to recreate a look of well loved and cherished companions. With the Teddy Bears we still adore the look of early old antique bears from Germany and ours have all the attributes of those traditional bears with long arms and spoon shaped paws,centre seam noses,boot button eyes and with a slight raised hump on the back.
We have exhibited our collectors bears in London U.K, Paris France, Hennef Germany, San diego U.S.A Tokyo Japan.We are have won many top awards in the U.K,Germany,U.S.A and Japan.
We are delighted that our designs are of museum quality .In 1996 Mr Sekiguchi founder of the Teddy Bear Museum in Izu and owner of Teddy Girl a 1904 cinnamon steiff bear formerly owned by Colonel Bob Henderson,was sold at auction in London for £110,000 purchased the whole of our exhibit at Hugglets Teddy Bear Fair in London for display in the Japanese Izu Museum.
More recently a large collection of our designs are on display at the wonderful
Puppenhaus Museum Basel Switzerland.
Thank you for visiting
Paula & Simon Strethill-Smith
