The Mary Bears were special cottage-style cyberpets made by a skilled woman named, well, Mary!
Starting as adorable little mohair bears, the Mary Bears were originally sold as cottage craft items Mary made in her shop. Alongside muslin dolls, tole paintings, and a few other cottage craft items. When Mary made her first Mary Bears and added them to her shop, they quickly became popular with her friends and clients! It was clear that the Mary bears were meant to shine!
So in 1991, Mary and her colleagues started to work exclusively on the mohair bears that skyrocketed to success. The Mary Bears went on to be written up in the magazines: Teddy Bear Review Magazine and Teddy Bear and Friends Magazine! Mary's Little Lamb (Mary's shop) even had their own little gal bear named, "Anna Panda" for a publication called, "The World's Most Lovable Bears" by Protfollio Press. Which was published by a man named, Steve L. Cronk, who was previously an editor for Teddy Bear Review!
However that wasn't all! The Mary Bears went on to be nominated for several awards and shipped across the globe to eager teddy bear collectors and teddy bear shops! And for over ten years, Mary traveled all across the U.S. to promote and sell her lovely Mary bears. Eventully Mary retired from making Mary bears due to, in Mary's words, "Bear burnout." With one exception, one more Mary Bear just for her granddaughter.
Well I'm glad you asked! In 1998, with help from her son Micheal, and his wife Cari, Mary made a cozy little website to find another way to promote the Mary bears. Within a year the Mary's Little Lamb website evolved from a bear maker's site, to a graphic web design site! And from 1999 until 2004 Mary made web graphics for users all across the old web. Today her website is now left in the Wayback Machine.
A monument of Mary's work.
With the history lesson out of the way, here are some Mary Bear cyberpets that were designed by Mary for clients! All of these guys had homes once, now their cozy cottage sites are lost to the Wayback Machine, and in ruin. There's still more Mary Bears out there in the gears of the Wayback Machine. I'm working my best to rescue all of them, but there's only so much even I can do!
