VTech Winnie the Pooh learning cell phone — With the original voices of Winnie the Pooh and his friends as well as exciting educational games — For children aged 9-36 months

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Deb says that her collection is constantly growing as about once a month, other collectors who are ready to leave their items behind will pass them on to her. Winnie the Pooh is a classic children's character who has become a beloved icon worldwide. Created by author A.A. Milne, the character first appeared in the book "Winnie-the-Pooh" in 1926, and has since appeared in numerous stories, films, TV shows, and other media. Pooh is a friendly, lovable bear who lives in the Hundred Acre Wood along with his friends Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, and Owl. He is known for his love of honey, his simplistic yet wise outlook on life, and his unwavering loyalty to his friends. Winnie the Pooh's stories are timeless classics that have captured the hearts of generations of children and adults alike. The character has become a cultural icon, representing childhood innocence, wonder, and imagination. With his gentle humour and timeless wisdom, Winnie the Pooh continues to inspire and delight people around the world.

On why Pooh is her favourite character, Deb said: “I love the fact that he's just simple, you know he's not the smartest but he's the most loving. He's always going out of his way for his friends, he's just not pretentious and man, I just wish the whole world were like that.”

Her mom managed to retrieve him thankfully, but Deb jokes her life today would probably be very different had she lost him and moved on to a different soft toy.

Before I knew it, I was collecting Winnie the Pooh again, it kind of just happened by accident,” Deb said. Deb says one of the questions people ask her most frequently is what’s going to happen to her collection when she’s gone.

Deb says she learned her lesson after that, and any time she saw something she didn’t have yet, she’d get it there and then just in case she couldn’t find it down the line. She said: “My father worked second shift and so he would come home around 10 in the evening. I knew when he was coming home, apparently, and so I would always get up and tell my mom I had to go potty so I’d be up to see him. It has been so such a part of our lives and we've just done things that we wouldn't have done if not for being the collector and being in the book.” I had a habit of sleeping on him when I was little so he’s kind of squished, and you wouldn’t recognize him without his red shirt on, but I love him and he’s still with us.” And so you have a faction of those people that say that. And then there's the other people that are like, ‘have fun with it’, you know, 'do the best that you can do and the most that you can'.

Milne’s character was based on a real-life bear who lived in London Zoo, who got there thanks to Canadian soldier Harry Colebourn. But with more than 23,000 unique items in her collection, Deb had to come up with a good system to catalogue everything. Deb has been supported in her endeavour by her husband, who often goes hunting around different stores with her to find new items. Deb says the reason most often is that people are downsizing and don’t have room for their collections any more.Deb’s collection has become so much more than just having the items, she says she’s collecting memories.

But when giving them up, they’d much rather pass the stuff on to Deb – someone who will truly appreciate the items, and as she says, “keep their memories safe for them too”. It took her nine years to finally get her hands on it but once she did, she also fulfilled her dream of playing Winnie the Pooh at Sears. As she got older, like most children, Deb grew out of her teddy bears, but still held on to the eight or so Pooh Bears she had.

He was so tattered even when I was little that my mom had to sew a separate fur skin for him, so it’s kind of like a Pooh within a Pooh, but it’s tattered again,” Deb said.