My mom planned our Bear Camp activities. For one of the activities, we decided to make stuffed bears. The girls helped, where they could. GraciAnn knows how to sew buttons, from her Montessori schooling so she helped with that. We also encouraged them to choose the dress style, the buttons, and help in any other way they possibly could. What they ended up with was bears they will treasure.
I used a brown paper bag to make a teddy bear pattern. I folded the bag in half so the pattern was symmetrical.
Here's the pattern opened up. We traced the pattern on brown felt. We cut the felt out. The girls selected the buttons they wanted for the eyes, nose, mouth, and accessories. We made the bears dresses from flannel receiving blankets. Then, we sewed the bears, around the edges, by hand (we were at camp and without a sewing machine) until we got to a place to stuff the bear with cotton pillow fill. We filled the bears and then finished stitching them up. We added bows to the bears ears. We were done!
The girls loved their bears. These bears will remind them of their special time at Bear Camp!