Calling All Artists!

We want to announce a fun and friendly contest hosted by BudBear, for a poster design for the Beartaria Times National Festival this year.

BudBear will accept submissions until August 24th.

Twelve finalists will be selected, and their designs will be printed and sold at the festival. Whoever sells out of 100 copies or sells the most by the end of the festival will be the grand prize winner with bragging rights and could allegedly receive a copy of their design signed by the Big Bear himself.

Designs should be digital renderings, 12×18 inches vertical, and 300 dpi. As always, please keep it to the clean and family-friendly standards of The Beartaria Times Community.

All proceeds will be donated to Beartaria Ozark Campground at BeartariaCampgrounds.com

Poster designs can be submitted to bearposters33@gmail.com for consideration.

By: Charity (@trailerparkgirl on BTA)

My mom started making wool sweater mittens sometime around 2014. She got the idea from visiting a local Mennonite-owned store. She found patterns online and started out just making them for the family. We’re a family of ten, so there are plenty of us to make mittens for.

In 2015, at eighteen, I became her right-hand businesswoman and began photographing her mittens and selling them on Etsy. My younger sister, Madeline, drew the mitten in the shop logo.

My mom called her shop “Too Many Mittens.” She may or may not have gotten the idea for the name from the 1958 children’s book “Too Many Mittens.”

It’s one of a few books she remembers from her childhood. My mom grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the story takes place in Michigan. 

My mom has always loved seeing her children be creative, so she was thrilled when I showed interest in learning how to make mittens. So, in 2016, she taught me how to make wool sweater mittens. I found them to be pretty simple to make. Very fun, too. I already had some experience with sewing, so it didn’t take long to get the hang of mitten-making. The excitement of pairing different wool sweater fabrics together and adding cool buttons to the cuffs was enough to get me hooked.

We make the mittens out of wool sweaters from thrift shops. And we line the mittens with fleece. My mom and I have had a blast sifting through thrift shop clothes racks in search of funky wool sweaters. We’ve gone through hundreds of wool sweaters in the past several years. Sometimes I see a sweater that I love so much that I’m tempted to keep it for myself to wear. But then I think, “Nah, that’ll make some really cool mittens.”

A few years ago, I invested in an embroidery sewing machine and lots of machine-embroidery thread. It’s been lots of fun to play around with different designs on mittens. They really give mittens extra character. The machine was definitely worth it. And it was fairly affordable. I use a Brother SE625. 

Now, in 2022, my mom is far too busy for making mittens. She’s focused on helping raise some of her grandchildren. So, my mom decided to let me take over Too Many Mittens. I’m planning on adding other handcrafted goods to our shop in the future, like cold-process soap. I’ve been playing around with soap-making since 2018. I’m currently working on perfecting recipes. My goal is to have soap available by Spring 2023. I’m even trying to get my younger sister to design the labels for the soap. After all, it is tradition. 

One day, I hope my mom will have some extra time on her hands so that she can get back into making mittens. She really enjoyed it, just like I do. Together, we have sold over 350 pairs of mittens. I’m grateful for the time we’ve been able to bond because of our mutual love of mitten-making. If I ever have a daughter of my own, I plan to teach her how to make wool sweater mittens and so many other wonderful things.

Visit my Etsy shop, Too Many Mittens, Here!

Bears get 15% off with the code: TRAILERPARKGIRL

By: Snow White Bear

Pointed pens have pointed tips. They come in straight and oblique holders.

Some pens can do both. Choose whichever is more comfortable.

First, clean your nib by putting it in your mouth for a few seconds (older calligraphers still do this), or get a potato from your garden and stick all your nibs in it (a minute should be enough, but some do this overnight) or my favorite using up all the unnatural toothpaste the dentist gives you to clean your nibs. If you skip this step, I’ll get a message from you saying, “Snow White Bear, I tried to write, but the ink won’t come out.”  For ink, any calligraphy ink will work. Thinner ink is easier to work with; slowly add distilled or filtered water. Walnut ink can be made at home or bought and is easy to work with. Iron gall ink is tremendous but slowly eats at the nib. “Dinky dips” are popular for pouring ink in.

Don’t use printer paper.  Any paper that is 32lbs or more (Hp 32lbs is popular) and smooth will work. Some like resume paper even though it has a slight texture. I print calligraphy guidelines I find online on these papers then I’m ready to practice.

Pointed pens are great at Copperplate script. Here are the basic strokes: 

Always write using guidelines. Traditionally Copperplate is written at 55 degrees. Practice the basic strokes until you can do them at least 80% consistently. Now it’s time to move on to letters. Letters are made up of basic strokes. The basic strokes usually group the letters they are composed of. 

Practice and practice writing letters and practice writing them slowly. You know when you’re going too fast when your pen keeps scratching or skipping on the page. Clean your pen with water and a paper towel every once in a while when writing after letters are mastered, and practice many words with attention to letter connections (I’ve seen this be a whole course) and spacing. Traditionally calligraphers are taught to practice pangrams like “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Writing long phrases can help master spacing and words more quickly. Next, majuscules and capital letters are learned, and unfortunately, they use different basic strokes and spacing than the minuscules or lower cases letters.

There are other scripts one can write with a pointed pen. Spencerian, a script invented in America by Platt Rogers Spencer, is the second most popular. My favorites are Engrosser Script, Italian Hand, and Open-Shaded Script. 

Modern calligraphy is based on traditional calligraphy but stylized differently. Although you don’t have to learn traditional calligraphy first, many calligraphers recommend it. What’s fun about modern is that after you practice hard and learn the rules, you make your own style. 

The fun thing about calligraphy is that they are many scripts, many pens, and many styles to learn. I only mentioned a few. It’s technical art that is limitless, and you keep improving your script every time you practice. 

My favorite calligraphy resources:

Traditional calligraphy online lessons:

logoscalligraphy.com

Dreaming in Script by David Grimes 

https://www.dreaminginscript.com/

zanerian.com has free lessons

Modern calligraphy online lessons:

The happy ever crafter on youtube

Calligraphy supplies:

https://www.johnnealbooks.com/

https://www.paperinkarts.com/

Join your local Calligraphy guild.

-Snow White Bear