They're Right at Home Now

Three little black porcelain bears,recline and relax on the top of my curio shelves. My friend, June, recently gave me these three vintage red-eared bears. They fit in perfectly with my fairly vast collection of small vintage items such as can be seen here. The base itself was built for me eight years ago, to my design, by a father of a friend of mine at the publishers. He's a master carpenter, and created this six foot wide by 5 foot high 'book' case for me out of poplar. I have bookshelves, so I designed this with narrower shelves, just for some of my collectibles. I have part of my grandmother's salt and pepper shakers displayed in it, as well as hundreds of other vintage figurines, dishes, model cars, etc. I've painted the unit, distressed it, used pieces of old wallpaper and linoleum, as well as a few printouts of photographs, all under several coats of polyurethane, much like my art that hangs on walls. You can see some of the flowered detail work on the edge of the shelf, covered with glazes and sanded off a bit to make it more aged looking.