Emily Opal is a miniature recycled, real fur teddy bear designed and hand stitched by teddy bear artist, Shelley K. Bossert. She is made from a fifty year old, full length ermine coat. This 3.5" ursine personality is fully wobble jointed, with polyester fiberfill and weighted with steel shot shavings for a heavy-in-your-hand life-like feel.

Emily has black, hand blown German glass eyes. She has two Australian black opal tear drops below her right eye and a heart shaped Australian black opal on her chest. Her nose is embroidered with size 8 Finca pearl cotton. Her paw pads and inner ears are made of butter soft pig skin suede.

All of my real fur bears are one-of-a-kind designs that are extremely labor intensive. Each of these bears presents its own challenges, but the smaller they are, the more difficult they are to make. It is virtually impossible to get your fingers inside any bear smaller than four and a half inches. For bears that small, I work under magnification with surgical tools. I have been able to successfully make many real fur bears as small as 3.5". This particular bear took four weeks of my time to do all of the following:

disassemble the coat from which she was made
clean and treat the skins
trace the pattern on the skins and lining
cut out the bear and line it
stitch it together
turn it right side out
sculpt the face
embroider the nose
set the eyes, trademark star and attach the ears

Emily Opal is a one-of-a-kind teddy bear designed and hand stitched by Shelley K. Bossert of Ursa Minor Miniatures. Like all of my teddy bears, this bear is not a toy and is not intended for small children. Small parts present a choking hazard. To see more of my work, please visit my web site, UrsaMinorMiniatures.com.

Be sure to check out my Market Hub on the right for more opportunities to see my work.

In addition to personal checks and US Postal Money orders, I accept PayPal. Shipments paid for by check are held until the check clears.

I do not pad my shipping charges but do pass actual costs on to you, the buyer. ArtFire requires that I pick a number for shipping so I picked the least expensive, slow-boat-to-China rate offered by the United States Postal Service. Secondary shipping charges depend on what else you are purchasing. If you are purchasing more than one item at a time from my studio, please e-mail for shipping charges. If you wish to choose a shipping method other than the USPS to a US address, the cost is more. That said, U.S. or Canadian purchasers may choose the U.S. Postal System, UPS or Fed Ex. but please request a shipping quote before making a purchase.

International purchasers may only use U.S. Global Priority Mail. Costs for Global Priority shipments vary by destination and package weight. Please contact me for a shipping quote before making a purchase. I will combine shipping upon request.

Insurance is optional but I accept no responsibility for damage to uninsured shipments.