Our Social Enterprise Journey... Encouragement from Customers

We've been fortunate to receive many kind words of compliments along our social enterprise journey. They indicate to us that the good design and social benefit of our products do make a difference. In this post, we'd like to share two messages ~ one from a UK visitor and the other from a local customer ~ which, together with the many others who have given us encouraging comments, have made our journey in the very tough retail market all worthwhile.

"He never fails to make me smile . . ."

Hello,

On a recent holiday to Singapore I was fortunate to visit the spectacular Gardens by the Bay where, in the gift shop, my wife bought a little batik teddy bear made by your organisation for me as a memento of a wonderful day.

I have called him 'Harry' after the late Prime Minister of Singapore and enclose a photograph of him sat on my bookcase at home here in the UK. He usually sits on my desk next to me when I am working and never fails to make me smile when I look at him.

The sewing skill and the quality of his manufacture are absolutely top class and the ladies and gentlemen who made him and many others like him are very talented indeed. I would be really grateful if you could pass on my sincere appreciation to them for their craftsmanship and also in providing me with a treasured memento of a really wonderful city.

Kind regards,
Mark Daly
United Kingdom
13 March 2016

* * * * * * *

"They are beautiful . . ."

Our Social Enterprise Journey... Engagement with FRIENDS OF THE DISABLED SOCIETY

In our social enterprise, we work with many talented people to create the products that you see in our blog and facebook. This has generated regular income for the makers of our products which include the elderly, homemakers, the disadvantaged, the poor, crafters and indie designers.

Besides this, we also use our creative products to benefit others such as Friends of the Disabled Society (FDS).  In this post, we document our engagement with FDS:

Providing Simple Jobs for FDS Members

"TeddyThotz has been supporting Friends of the Disabled with their creative products for many years. Their support has helped to boost our sales when we take part in bazaars to benefit our members. Our members are also more encouraged and motivated when they see better sales from their effort.

"We are happy that TeddyThotz has now expanded its support to include providing simple jobs for our members to do at our premises. It's another regular source of income for us and it fits well with our job creation programme for our members.

"TeddyThotz is a very committed social enterprise, coming to us with suggestions on how else they want to collaborate with us. We are now looking into developing products together for retail. It's more challenging but definitely more fulfilling and worthwhile if successful. We are excited to see what we can achieve with our members' craft skills and TeddyThotz's creative ideas." ~ Roogmanny, Executive Director, FDS

Supporting Mary's Small Enterprise

With our best selling products, Mary is able to do well in bazaars.

More TRADITIONAL CUP COASTERS and TABLEMATS in CHECKED FABRICS

We've made some new Tablemats and Cup Coasters with checked fabrics.  Shown here are the 15-inch diameter Tablemats which can also be used as small Floormats. The Cup Coaster is about 4.5-inch in diameter. You can buy our traditional tablemats and cup coasters at our pop-up market at Westgate on the 2nd and 4th Thu-Sun of every month. Email us here if you have any queries.

LOVE will keep us TOGETHER

BEAR COUPLE 1

BEAR COUPLE 2

CAT COUPLE

DUCK COUPLE

ELEPHANT COUPLE

GIRAFFE COUPLE

PANDA COUPLE

RABBIT COUPLE 1

RABBIT COUPLE 2

PUPPY LOVE IS TRUE LOVE FOR OUR ADORABLE DOGS

For this year's Valentine's crochet gifts, we decided to shift the focus from teddy bears to our series of adorable dogs. Because we started late, our crafter only had time to make these six pairs of Valentine Dogs. Size is approx 15cm width x 15cm height. Price is $50 each pair. To order, please email georgewong@teddythotz.com.

CAVALIER KING CHARLES SPANIEL

FRENCH BULLDOG

MALTESE

PUG

SCHNAUZER

SIBERIAN HUSKY

'Cause all of me, Loves all of you...

Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me
I'll give my all to you
You're my end and my beginning
Even when I lose I'm winning
Cause I give you all of me
And you give me all of you, oh

[John Legend ~ "All of me"]

We've got all of these one-of-a-kind wire art sculptures specially created for your Valentine. To order, please email us here for the details.

 

Small Crochet Dogs: A Tribute to Man's Best Friends

As I'm typing this post, it's way past my pet dog Browny's bedtime. But as always, Browny will stay up and lie beside me, keeping me company as I do my work. It's only when I go to bed that Browny will go to his own bed to sleep. Such is the faithfulness of dogs.

This post is our TRIBUTE TO ALL OUR LOYAL FRIENDS OUT THERE. We got our crafters to crochet 10 species of dogs in small size, around 12cm tall/long, so that everyone can afford (only $15) to have a BEST FRIEND. Note: Price may change over time.

BEAGLE

CAVALIER KING CHARLES SPANIEL

FRENCH BULLDOG

LABRADOR RETRIEVER

MALTESE

MINIATURE DACHSHUND

MINIATURE SCHNAUZER

PUG

SHIBA

SIBERIAN HUSKY

NEW SERIES OF TRADITIONAL CUP COASTERS, TABLEMATS AND FLOORMATS

Introducing our new series of traditional cup coasters, tablemats/pot coasters, and floormats which we worked with Nat Mai and her three-generation family to make them.

We used only polkadot and checked fabrics and chose a concentric circle design for a truly retro look. With this design, we didn't have to micro-manage, allowing the sewer the freedom to mix and match our fabrics in any random and asymmetrical order. 

Nat Mai's elderly mother was so happy with our project that she finished making the coasters and mats in double-quick time. We were glad she was happy, but was worried she would over-stretched herself and had to keep telling her to take her time and get plenty of rest.

What we didn't expect was the amount of fabric used up. Just for the record, we had 18 pcs of polkadot fabrics each two meters long and a similar quantity of checked fabrics ~ that's 72 meters of fabric in total. This much fabric gave us only 100 cup coasters (4ins), 20 pcs of 10-inch tablemats, 12 pcs of 15-inch tablemats, and 4 pcs of 20-inch floormats. Our material cost per piece was therefore very high.

Here are the results:

10-INCH TABLEMAT/POT COASTER IN CHECKED FABRIC (with 4-inch cup coaster for comparison).

10-INCH TABLEMAT/POT COASTER IN POLKADOT FABRIC.

15-INCH TABLEMAT (with 4-inch cup coaster for comparison).

15-INCH TABLEMAT.

15-INCH TABLEMAT.

15-INCH TABLEMAT.

15-INCH TABLEMAT.

15-INCH TABLEMAT.

15-INCH TABLEMAT.

15-INCH TABLEMAT.

20-INCH FLOORMAT (with 4-inch cup coaster for comparison).

20-INCH FLOORMAT.

20-INCH FLOORMAT.

20-INCH FLOORMAT.

4-INCH CUP COASTERS IN POLKADOT FABRIC.

4-INCH CUP COASTERS IN CHECKED FABRIC.