Over the summer, someone left a wide-eyed, creepy carnival prize-type stuffed bear in the French House. For a better part of the year it sat around and stared at all of us. Then Sarah and I decided to make the bear into a sort of pinata/time capsule.

Me with the patient in prep. Sarah M and Mira look on



We started by cutting the seams around his neck



Then we moved to the belly


The knife works well for this application



Sarah finishes opening the chest cavity



Next, we had to remove the stuffing



We put down some plastic to lessen the mess, but it didn't really work



At some point, Lauren came in and was horrified at what we were doing



We scooped the stuffing into a bag, but of course styrofoam still got everywhere



Emily came in with a very Wisconsin "Oh my"



There was a lot of stuffing in that bear



We looked around the house and found a bunch of things to put in the bear, including: a French children's book about ants, some crayons, some People magazines . . . um, I think a shoe as well . . .



Once we put all that crap in the bear, we sewed it up starting with the belly


Still sewing



Sewing the neck was a little trickier. Well, not really



Sarah gave it an old tank top, and it got a scarf from somewhere, and now the bear is slightly less creepy