We are the most intriguing biggest little Stuffed Animal shop in California!
We also feature Decorative House and Garden Flags for the home
plus amazing Three-dimensional Greeting Cards!
Store Hours:
Monday-Wednesday, Friday and Saturday 10 AM - 6 PM
Thursday 2 PM -7 PM
Sunday 11 AM -5 PM
1410 Industrial Park Ave. at the TriCity Center inside SweetPea and Me Specialty Bakery
(email:startulipstuffies@earthlink.net)
Extremely easy access from Interstate 10 in Redlands between San Bernardino and Palm Springs!
Find us NOW at our NEW LOCATION, sharing space with SweetPEA and Me Specialty Bakery in the TriCity Center
Open 7 days a week!
Friends from Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura Counties and beyond: Do you pass "routinely" through Redlands on your travels?
Make Us a “regular” stop!
Having made the above announcement and showed you Aimee's logo that you will currently see above the door of our new location next to "Bakery", we are equally saddened (for us) and delighted (for her) to announce that while Aimee will be finishing up orders placed for specialty baked items through the end of August when her lease here ends, she will no longer be accepting new orders because in just the last couple of weeks she was offered and accepted a terrific full-time job offer with administrative duties in the Redlands School System! This is a wonderful, desired and well-deserved opportunity for her, but it also means Aime will be closing the Bakery portion of this space--and we will soon be missing the heady sweet aroma of baking cupcakes! We are currently in hopeful negotiations with the landlord to try and assume the lease in September... Fingers are crossed, stay tuned!
Today is Wednesday, August 21, 2019
The Turkeys are HERE! The TURKEYS are HERE!!!
As promised another shipment "installment" from Evergreen Enterprises has arrived--and this one contains (some of our) Thanksgiving Flags! Some years those featuring Turkeys are less exciting than in other years, but we got lucky this year and have been able to bring you several choices of House and Garden Decorative Flags featuring some version of this holiday harvest icon! Now we just have to get them unpacked and on display for you to browse through!
We are working on a replacement business sign to trade out for the "Bakery" one that is currently confusing everyone--and is for sale at a ridiculously "reasonable" price--contact us if you know anyone who could use a generic, unbranded (the lettering is removable vinyl), full-channel-cut, LED, "Bakery" sign for their shop! Meanwhile, with the Baker's permission we have removed the information miss-identifying us as a place to purchase baked treats that was on the windows and replaced it with a very temporary sign on the door letting visitors know that this location is our new home! We hope this helps for now!
We know that now that the school year has begun for many, even though a lot will take place between then and now, Fall and Winter and their attendant holidays and celebrations are just around the corner and will be here before we know it! We're busy right now seriously restocking our shelves that we purposely allowed to lighten up before we moved to make that job a little easier! We recently have filled our Flag Wall to overflowing with beautiful NEW DESIGNS of House and Garden Flags, some with matching 6" Accent Magnets in BOTH Summer (we will be "enjoying" this not-autumn weather for many weeks before the temperatures come close to matching the actual "season"!) AND Fall Decorative Flags--and we are expecting new shipments from Ganz (Plush Cats, Farm and Forest creatures and Autumn Crystal Ornaments) and are working on orders from others of our additional awesome suppliers! We already finished unpacking ALL THOSE BOXES from Wild Republic, managing to get at least one of each of all of that "stuff" inside them onto the shelves. (We are now showing images of the more than 30 different kinds of stuffed animals that arrived in our shipment--starting with a BUNCH of new and/or replenished Desert Critters)! If you want first shot at choosing from our newly arriving merchandise, we encourage you not to postpone visiting us for too long and to check in with at least occasionally in the coming weeks as the selection changes! These beautiful items will go fast--and it's probably not too soon to even be thinking ahead toward those Christmas gift lists (aaaargh!)...!
SPECIAL NOTE: Wild Republic has managed to hold the line on their entirely reasonable prices for quite some time--but finally slightly increased them with this year's catalog, so you will see a little uptick in the price of the newest arrivals (we will not go back and reprice things we got at a better rate before this year, so you may see what you believe to be some inconsistencies in the prices among what seem to be similar kinds of pieces). Be aware that we placed this mongo order AHEAD of an additional price increase Wild Republic just announced in response to newly levied tariffs on goods imported from China. Our prices will not reflect this new increase until we purchase items at that rate in the future...
Don't forget that we are NOW OPEN at our NEW LOCATION inside SweetPea and Me Specialty Bakery (which will be disappearing by the end of August, leaving us here by ourselves without the aroma of baking cakes...) in the TriCity Shopping Center!!!!
To help you find us even more easily, we now have a few of our (Back-to-School and Apple) Decorative Flags out across the storefront just under the "Bakery" sign! These should be pretty hard to miss from the parking lot, Industrial Park Avenue or even from See's or Big Lots across the street--just like they are difficult not to admire if you happen to have one (or more!) adorning your own home! And, yes, it feels more like "home" here every day as we continue to settle in, especially since we are finally able to work on filling in empty spaces and adding new merchandise.
Our brief trip on Monday, August 19 nearly retracing the steps of our July visit to the San Bernardino Mountains did a lot to assuage our symptoms of wildflower withdrawal, common at this time of year as our local botany winds down for Fall and it's still too early for monsoon flowers in our neighboring states to the east! Being spoiled enough to easily traverse an area with so many elevations and exposures and moisture levels has made it really interesting, especially this year, to follow the monthly succession of changes as the mountain habitats progress from Spring through Summer and on into Fall! Very little hints seriously at Autumn quite yet in our local mountains, but there is a sense that the flurry of spring bloom has been largely accomplished with Nature now poised awaiting seeds and fruits to mature into assets soon to be furiously harvested! August 19 in our mountains was comfortably warm in the shade, hot in the direct path of sunlight, quiet and still in most places and enveloped in crystal clear air crowned by clear solid blue skies! And it was quite obvious that changes have occurred since about this time last month. While there was surprisingly little reduction in the net numbers and variety of flowers in bloom, they were provided by quite different species than in July and there was a notable increase in the development of fruits and seeds among many plants we previously caught in full, rampant bloom! Pictures from this quick botanical foray will thus include images of late-blooming flowers along with those showing the "fruits" of this labor on the already-bloomed!
Another late-bloomer we often encounter still in full-flower even into early winter is the ever-charming and always RED "California Fuchsia"--which we have shown and talked about before, but which we just couldn't resist documenting as such a stunning example holding forth in all of its glory in mid August!
All seven of the boxes from Wild Republic are open and unpacked, with at least one of each plush designs contained therein having found a home on our habitat shelves!
We have refilled all those empty "leaves" on our "Tree" (now again) full of Audubon Birds with the authentic sound chips recorded by Cornell University! Back in stock are Meadowlarks, Mockingbirds, House Sparrows, House Finches, Black-capped Chickadees and Eastern Bluebirds!
We also just filled in a bunch of gaps in our Forest Habitat with new pieces from Wild Republic!
Every once in awhile wolves in fur colors different from the classic tweedy gray-brown appear in the wild and are caught in Nature videos, etc. A higher density of variations on cream to white wolves probably occurs the father north they extend into their range, but an occasional all Black Wolf does occur. This is the first time since we have been in the stuffed animal business that one of our suppliers has taken the trouble to produce a plush wolf in this stunning version of possible colors--and we think they did a pretty impressive job!
Things are taking a familiar, albeit not quite finished shape in our new digs! It may be a little while before we're sure enough of our arrangements to hang our habitat backdrops behind some of our groupings, but meanwhile, we've actually created some additional space in several of them that we will be working on filling with new "stuff" in the coming weeks!
Of COURSE we brought along the Decorative Flags (now "guarded" by our plush Dogs!), Raggedy Ann and Andy and our 3-D Greeting Card Collections (both Swing and Pop-Up)!
Yes--we brought the "Cat House", currently housing both our Realistic Domestic Cats and Kittens as well as our Caricature Cats like Grumpy Cat, Pusheen (a few left) and Simon's Cat AND our Ocean Habitat! Those Jellyfish and that big blue Sperm Whale will eventually find themselves again "floating" among the waves--as soon as we can get a ladder in there to suspend them from the ceiling...!
Our Medical Area has become one of our most popular displays, so of course we have it at the new location! We even made more space for it to house additional fun "stuff" in anticipation of adding more plush Cells, Germs and Vermin from Giant Microbes in the near future!
The first of our Thanksgiving Decorative Flags have arrived in store! This one is a brilliantly printed design focusing on the most purple aspects of Turkey feathering--which contrast admirably against those ripe orange Pumpkins! Only available in the House size, but how much much better a "statement" it makes big and bold!
Here is a montage of the first wave of NEW Fall Decorative Flags, some with available matching 6" Accent Magnets--in store NOW!!
Not quite ready to display a Fall Decorative Flag yet, knowing we won't be seeing anything like Autumn weather for months? Never fear! We have awesome NEW Summer Flags in store, along with coordinating 6" Accent Magnets for those from Custom Decor, to help get you through those intervening "dog days"!
THIS is the DISCOUNT COUPON now appearing inside the August issues of the Redlands Coupons Monthly, Highland Coupons Monthly and Yucaipa Coupons Monthly!
Many of these are delivered right to houses in these areas, but if you don't happen to receive one on your doorstep, never fear! We JUST received a stack of them in store, so pick one up when you visit and take advantage of all the cool deals inside!
It is hard to believe that Star Tulip Stuffies, House of Fine Stuffed Animals has been open for over four years home again in Redlands, CA (we started here back in 2003 in the now-defunct old downtown Redlands Mall)!
We have lived and worked and been your neighbors in this area for more than 40 years! Star Tulip Stuffies was originally opened as a storefront in the Redlands Mall back in 2003. Since then a growing following of stuffed animal aficionados has managed to find, support and spread the word about us.
From the very beginning our intent has been to bring our customers the very best selection of the finest quality plush creatures we can find while keeping our prices as rational as we can.
We are all about choices; we like nothing better than to present several different companies’ version of the same animal because we have found that every designer will have a different take on that same critter. Thus, if you visit us, which we certainly hope to make you curious enough to do, you should not be surprised to find that, not only do we have an “unusual” creature, say a porcupine or an opossum, rendered in plush, but that we also will likely have four or five or even more styles from as many different manufacturers (with accompanying differences in sizes and prices!) of that individual kind of animal! This also means that while you will find respected and familiar names like Gund, Ganz, Douglas Cuddle Toy, Fiesta Toys, Aurora, Wild Republic, etc. on many of our products, we make a point of searching out quality companies less well known, especially in California, that you may only brush up against on a trip to the zoo or aquarium (we really love the educational kick provided by those extremely realistic representations!) or while traveling east of the Rocky Mountains (many retailers are simply unwilling to stand the cost of shipping some of these…)--or that are just outrageously esoteric (we have plush germs--in Petri dishes, no less--by GiantMicrobes and body parts--if I only had a brain--from I [Heart] Guts!
Our selection is so diverse (we are simply stuffed with “stuff”, but then “stuff” is what we do!) in order to keep track of everything we have resorted to arrangement by habitat! When you visit (by now you know you have to if you can…) you will eventually notice that our entire shop is suggestive of the interior and exterior of a gigantic fantastic playhouse or dollhouse. “Inside” live authentic Raggedy Ann and Andy, Sesame Street characters, etc. Also living the pampered “indoor” life are plush Cats and Teddy Bears “Outside” you will find our rather extensive collection of realistic Dog Breeds (this is a personal favorite category of ours, so if someone makes a decent version of a specific breed, we will try to have it for you!), Barnyard Animals, Horses, Frog and Turtle ponds, Forest critters, Desert animals, Birds, and creatures of Central and South America, Australia, Africa and Asia as well as an area devoted to Ocean life! There is even a section “inhabited” by the fantasmagorical creatures of the imagination including dragons, faeries, unicorns and the like!
About Our Name: The “Star Tulip” part of our name alludes to our other life as occasional botanists! “Star tulips” are members of a rather large genus, Calochortus, meaning “beautiful grass”, of native Californian lilies that includes species with enchanting common names like “butterfly” or “mariposa tulips” and “faerie lanterns”. The butterfly tulips have large goblet-shaped tulip-style flowers, often marked with spots and bobbing in the breeze above their cohabitating grasses like the insects they appear to mimic. The more diminutive faerie lanterns have closed flowers on slender overarched stems and could easily be imagined to light the nighttime activities of elfin woodland inhabitants. Our tiny namesakes open fully wide and close to the ground as if they were stars scattered across the forest floor! The alliteration of “Star Tulip” and “Stuffies” was just too tempting to pass up!
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