While Canna Bear Paint is relatively new for us, Margaret's family goes back generations with sewing, toy-making and other artistic endeavors. Margaret herself has been a lifelong traditional artist in watercolors, oils, pastels and various other mediums. When her children were small, she enjoyed making them teddy bears, dogs and other stuffed animals by hand. She had no idea at the time that a serious artist-handcrafted teddy bear industry even existed.

Years passed by (almost 20 of them) and Margaret's teddy-making days dwindled down as her children grew. In April of 2003, Margaret's daughter Kelly was browsing through the online auction site eBay, and happened to find the artist bears category. It was a wonderful surprise, she emailed Margaret a link to them and suggested 'you could be making teddies again!' Well, that idea just wouldn't go away and by October 2003 Margaret was making her first teddy bear in a long time. She developed her own patterns from the start, polishing off old skills and learning a lot of new ones!

Within 6 months, her bears had taken major steps forward. A big girl bruin by the name of Joy would be her first published bear photo, in a 'summer fun' article for Teddy Bear Review magazine. Joy was not only published, she was Margaret's most advanced pattern to date, with a double-jointed neck, open mouth and hand-sculpted polymer clay teeth. Margaret had been developing a thick notebook of ideas that she wanted to work on for future bears, she would no sooner start to sew one pattern than she would simultaneously start to design a whole new pattern from scratch. The only thing Margaret lacked was the time necessary to try everything all at once!

By early summer of 2004, her daughter Kelly volunteered to help with the sewing around the work she was going for her graduate degree if it would help her mother save time. "You can hand me the simple things to work on while you move on to the more difficult parts," Kelly suggested. This deal lasted for about one bear. Kelly discovered that if she was going to get involved in the project, well... she had some ideas she would like to work on, too. She went home and looked at pictures of polar bears, by the next morning she had her very own pattern. That first bear she made with the pattern was called Snow, and he worked out so well that he became our first edition.

Needless to say, the business is now a partnership between both Margaret and Kelly. Both of them have developed their own patterns and enjoy working towards their own goals as much as they enjoy collaborating. Margaret excels in areas such as costuming and particularly enjoys salvaging vintage fur, Kelly most enjoys working on more realistic animals such as bears on all-fours and rabbits. Together they work on projects like their Holiday Treasure Bears series, where each bear has its own elaborate handmade ornament.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. The funny thing is that now both of them have thick notebooks of ideas they'd like to work on, and there still isn't enough time in the day to do everything all at once. Lately Margaret just happened to come across some lovely new vintage furs, and Kelly has been seen caught furtively looking at books of dogs and cats. We're destined to keep ourselves busy!