Animal Peeper Keeper eyeglass holders due for extinction?

Our popular giraffe eyeglass holders (Peeper Keepers) are going fast. For the past few years, these amusing animal eyeglass holders (the giraffes and over 40 other styles) have been extremely popular as Christmas and Hanukkah gifts. This may be the last year for some of the styles unless another vendor picks them up. That's right, they are being phased out! If you want to give animal Peeper Keepers this year, it may be a good idea to buy early to insure you get the ones you want. This is not a marketing ploy. Some styles are running low and may be gone before December. See and order the peepers here!

Gorgeous pink flamingo jewelry

You can't beat this beautiful pink flamingo hand-painted jewelry for lifelike detail and charm. This is a wonderful and affordable gift or collector's item. Don't most of us know someone who loves pink flamingos? Look at the wonderful detail. It's all hand-painted in the USA. The flamingo mould is also made in the USA and hand-cast in pewter before being painted. This gives it some body and detailing before the paint even goes on. Click here to purchase or learn more about these wonderful pins!

Cow jewelry - beautiful hand-painted pin!

Who likes cow jewelry? Mooooo! I do do! Maybe you do, too. A lot of people collect cows, and this cow is highly collectible and of excellent quality to wear, give, or keep for yourself. You can read more about how this outstanding hand-made jewelry is created in the USA and you can order from us online. Please come take a look! Moooo! We also have sheep, goats, chickens, pigs, and other farm animal hand-painted pins.

Enchanting stuffed bobcat toy!

This lovely stuffed bobcat has all the tufted trimmings. At an affordable price (check it out on our web site) this bobcat is a perfect gift or keepsake. Buy it early for the holidays. Save on gas since we ship anywhere in the world and all over the United States. We have lots of wonderful stuffed animals, plastic animals, and other great animal-themed gifts. If you'd rather give us a call, we have a toll-free number: (888) 325-3179.

Stuffed plush chinchilla

One of our most popular stuffed animals this year has been this adorable lifelike chinchilla. Made by Hansa, it has all of the realistic details you expect from this maker of high-quality stuffed animal toys. Collectors and kids alike love Hansa animals. In our showroom, we've learned that both children and adults are attracted to the realism and character built into every one of Hansa's hand-made stuffed animals. They are designed based on real living specimens, and for that reason each has the character and features of a living animal. They're made in small quantities. The fur and is designed and dyed just for each animal type, and several unique styles of fur are put together to make each animal. For instance, the tail fur of this chinchilla is long and is designed and made separately from the fur of the feet, which is short. Finally, hand stitching and a bit of color are added to complete each lovable animal character.

Stuffed plush insect pests! (What unusual toys!)

Much cuter than they are irritating, we have stuffed dust mites (shown above), stuffed fleas, stuffed bedbugs, stuffed mosquitos, stuffed lice and more. Look at the big "take-me-home" eyes! Our stuffed insect pests have become stuffed "pets" for many of our appreciative customers. We imagine that they're often used for gag gifts as well! Come see and enjoy our unusual stuffed bugs!

Plastic Saber-tooth tiger (cat)

Do you know someone who is fascinated by ancient beasts? We have a terrific saber-tooth tiger in our online gift shop. The details are realistic and attractive, the big cat conveys the striking mystery of a bygone era. And the price is affordable! We ship anywhere in the world. Check out our sabertooth cat figurine here!

Greyhound dog jewelry - hand-painted pin (and other animal gifts!)

If you're looking for a gift for a dog-lover in your life, this hand-painted greyhound dog might be just the ticket. Or if one of our five greyhound designs doesn't suit you, we've got lots more dog pins! Come take a look! If you still don't see the breed you're looking for, give us a call or send e-mail from our dog jewelry page. We have so many, we're still putting them online! We've been doing business on the Internet since 1996 to support the conservation of endangered tapirs.

We're real, we're safe, we're friendly, we're reliable, and we answer our phones or return your e-mail. If in doubt, check us out! Call today . . . toll free (888) 325-3179. We're on the River Walk in Astoria, Oregon. If you're in the area, please stop in and see all of our wonderful stuffed animals, pins, and a surprising array of realistic plastic animals, too! We'd love to meet you!

Two adorable stuffed opossums (possums)!

Are you looking for a stuffed opossum?

We have two of the cutest and most cuddly stuffed opossums you'll find anywhere. The one in the top photo actually looks real and is about the size of a real one. The opossum in the photo below is a finger puppet and is closer to the size of a baby. Its fur is UNbelievably soft! Check them both out. Just click here!

More dog pins!

Yes! I've put even more dog pins online in our Tapir and Friends Wildlife World web store. We have so many dog breeds available, there are still a lot more to come. If you don't see the breed you want in our outstanding dog jewelry section, please call us toll free at 888-325-3179 or send e-mail. We'll let you know what's in stock. You can also read over the list posted here. This probably covers most of them, but it may not be complete. Shown above is one of our Great Dane styles and of course a yellow Labrador.

Fantasy dragon jewelry

This dragon jewelry is a bit out of our ordinary realm - not that we don't like dragons, but so far we've specialized in real animal themes and recently we've branched out into ethnic art of South America. With the inclusion of ethnic art and imagination, we could easily get into dragons in the near future. For now, this is only our second fantasy dragon, and it came to us with the collection of wildlife pins on consignment from the artist. The pin seen in this photo can be found in our Tapir's World Gift Shop via this link. Our other dragon is a Peeper Keeper eyeglass holder. See it here!

Boykin Spaniel dog jewelry

This morning I finished putting up the dog pins that are already scanned. I thought this red boykin spaniel was a beautiful example of the portrait pin style. I have a couple more dogs on my desk that need scanning, then I need to look through the un-scanned inventory below and find the rest of the dogs. Hey, look! There's a Labrador! This is going to be fun . . . more beautiful dogs to come soon!

Dog jewelry pin page coming along

Today I've been working on the dog pin page. I transferred the 8 dogs I already had on the multi-species pin page to the new dog pin page, and then added a bunch more. There are 20 dogs on the site now, and 9 more to go that are already scanned. I like this Australian cattle dog! Actually, they're all very nice, but this guy caught my fancy.

Werregue palm baskets - the amazing water jars of the Colombian coast

The first of these delightful and finely-crafted works of Colombian ethnic art are now online in our gift shop and more are due to arrive soon. I've given the baskets a page of their own. You can scroll from top to bottom and easily see what's in stock. The construction is especially unusual, and they take a very long time to make. Known worldwide for their fine detail, tight weave, and beautiful designs, the werregue palm baskets are truly special. You can read more about them on our site. We will continue to import these collectible items from Colombia and we'll keep you posted. Sergio sent some more photos today, and I can't wait for them to arrive! You'll note that although the example above depicts several animals (a toucan on this side and other animals on other parts of the basket), some are pure design and color. We've taken a step away from our animals-only theme in order to be able to put even more money back into the field to protect the animals. By branching out, we'll have greater choices in the crafts we can buy from local artisans. Plus, it's a dream come true for me to be able to work with such wonderful art. Let's see what the future holds in store!

Crunchy the Aardvark has a happy new home

Our wonderfully lifelike stuffed aardvark became the talk of the town. I hope you enjoy this comment as much as we did:

Just wanted you to know that I received the Aardvark in good condition. I gave it to the 2 1/2 year old son of two very close friends, and we went to the LA County Fair today. The Aardvark elicited many double takes, as people thought the stuffed toy was alive! Drew is very happy with his Aardvark, and has named him "Crunchy." Good work! I would recommend your products to anyone.

And thanks so much for letting us know! We loved hearing
your delightful story!

Spiders, anyone? Nice tarantula pin for sale!

The latest offering in our gift shop is this colorful and creepy (to some), or "agreeable" as Jane Austen would say, hand-cast and hand-painted tarantula pin. Whatever your take is on spiders, this is a very nice work of wearable art! Don't forget to scroll on up to the top of the page and check out the butterflies! I've added a few more since last night.

Talk about colorful, realistic reptile jewelry. . . !

I've just put these two guys online on our new reptile jewelry page. I love them! Look at that iguana (top) - it looks like a watercolor! You'd hardly know it's made of cast pewter, paint, and an incredibly durable clear finish. The gecko (bottom pic) definitely has a Southwest color scheme. If I'm not careful, I'll take them all home with me and have nothing left to sell. These are dramatic, and there are so many more pieces still to put online! I'm liking the new arrangement, though, where we have the menu pages for this style of jewelry broken down into animal types. It's going to be necessary to do that in order to get them all on the site, as they would never have fit on the original page, which is now painfully in transition. I'll get more of the clutter out of the top as it turns into a more complete menu page :) Meanwhile, it keeps me off the streets, which may not be all that good. I've got to get out and enjoy the day at some point! Tomorrow is Sunday Market. I look forward to moseying around, taking photos and buying fresh fruit and veggies.

Painted butterfly and dragonfly jewelry, presented by Yours Truly, certified geek

I love messing with web pages, although sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming trying to get a large number of gift shop items organized and figuring out how the pages will make some kind of sense. I've been doing that today, starting with the butterfly and insect painted animal pins. We have SO many styles of painted animal pins. They are gorgeous and fun, and I want to get all of them online in the next few weeks. Our older site optimizes better than the new one (longevity does make a difference online!) so even though I can put them up and organize them faster on the new site, they're just not being found. I thought I'd try to bring some of that organization back to the original site and get them up where people are at least visiting the pages in larger numbers. I really, really want to get this done, it just takes forever. I wish I had more time to devote to this one project. To be honest, I can say that about all my projects, but this one is on the front burner today.

Another purpose for the revamped page is that I finally got a BlackBerry and surfed the web with it the other day for the very first time. It's VERY cool! I love the way phone calls and e-mail links tend to merge. Either or. The PDA doesn't care. You want to call? OK. You want to e-mail? No problem! I also see some of the issues with reading web pages on a hand-held device, and I'm attempting to build in some assistance for phone surfers. I'm making links that take you easily back to the top of the page, and I'm beginning to eliminate the endless sidebar menus that you have to scroll through to get to the meat of the content. These can be overlooked on a computer, but not on a hand-held. I'm starting to discover some of the web-surfing shortcuts when using the BlackBerry, but there's no point in making a web page harder than it needs to be. (I know, I know - one should be using CSS, but I don't find it that easy or that much fun, so I'm still working around it for the most part. I did try it. I just don't care for it. My old-code pages actually work much better and faster on a BlackBerry than I feared they would - better than this blog, for instance.) And. Cleaning up the pages is nice for the design, too. It's funny. It seems the form follows function thing works here, too. "Necessity," or at least preference for making the pages easier to use is helping me see the logical way to clean up some of the junk I've been wanting to streamline. What could be better?

Running zebra hand-painted animal jewelry!

This engaging running zebra pin is only one of hundreds of pieces of our hand-painted animal jewelry that gallop, fly, swim, scuttle, slither, and wriggle. Come check them out in and Friends online gift shop! We have dog jewelry, bird jewelry, reptiles, frogs, cats and kittens, sea animals, sharks, fish, horses and ponies, farm animals, insects, butterflies, dinosaurs and a unicorn! All are made and painted in the USA!

Animal jewelry from Corinna

Animal jewelry . . . what a nice gift these pieces make! How about a nifty tricolor toucan pin, pendant, or pair of earrings? Or a swinging siamang? Choose your colors, and this custom-made aluminum jewelry (lightweight, shiny, and durable) is yours for a very affordable price. Check out Corinna's other designs in our online gift shop! You can also call us toll free at (888) 325-3179. Talk to you soon!