Maya
15 Years Experience
Kansas City, MO
Female, 27
I make dolls and stuffed animals by hand, and I'm learning to do wooden toys also. Sometimes I design my own toys! I've been making them since I was 12 years old. (And this Q&A has been running for 10.) I sell them at craft fairs, farmers markets, through word of mouth, and also (soon) online. Ask me anything! :)
Haha, pretty much! My mum always wants socks - and I do make her some nice lace ones. By this point, knitting is a skill in my toymaking repertoire, more than the other way round. But I do some other knitting stuff sometimes. But yeah, any kids or kids-at-heart definitely get toys. And if I forget a birthday till the last minute (guilty!!) then it's just so easy to pull an overnighter and make a small toy, and they always love it! :)
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Probably not, no. This is a very grassroots sort of project for me. But I won't say never, because there are a few companies that I would consider, if they asked. Magic Cabin is definitely my favorite. I always adored their toys when I was little, even spending time on the website just *looking* at everything they had!
But generally, unless it was a company like that, I would not be too gung ho about that idea. There are just so many legal guidelines and restrictions and policies and tests, honestly, I wouldn't want to do all of that for any but the perfect manufacturer. Plus, one of the things that people love about my toys is that theirs is totally unique! Kids are never going to see one of their classmates with the same toy that they got from me. It's part of the old-fashioned magic of it all. :)
However, I would definitely consider putting together a pattern and instruction book, and sell that in the "mainstream" market. I'm working on a project like that right now, although I haven't made commitments or deadlines with anyone else about it, so I'm going at my own snail's pace with it. But it is in the works for someday!
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No, not at all. For one thing, many of my clients/customers are grandmothers (or grandmotherly types) who are very kind and forgiving in general; for another, I'm confident that my toys are safe. There's no way a child could get hurt with them. I don't use safety eyes, but rather I opt to embroider the facial features on, so there are no tuggable, chokable parts; I also use durable, mostly natural materials, so that my toys may be dragged, posed, tossed, lost, found, carried, and thrown in the washing machine (inside a pillow case) and laid out to dry in the sun. They are soft and safe, and like I said, my target demographic is generally not sue-happy! But if they were, I'm not giving them any reason to go after me, anyway. I love kids and I would not put a toy up for sale unless I was perfectly confident in their suitability. (And if one were not good for kids in some way, I would simply sell it as a desk toy, and make the reason very clear to the buyer, just to be safe.
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Sometimes there isn't one, actually! When I'm working with very small toys (like the amigurumi that are only a few inches tall) then it's definitely attaching the limbs. That's a small space for adult-sized hands to work in. But when I'm working on a very sturdy skin fabric (like for those dolls) then every part is the hardest. It is fairly simple, but the physical strain is nothing to sneeze at. I sometimes walk away with new blisters on my hands, and usually some sore muscles too. But it is still always worth it for the finished product, and I've mostly toughened my hands up now, so it's all good! :)
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Why thank you! I would definitely attribute at least part of it to being homeschooled. I mean, there are some bright public-school kids out there, and I have definitely met a few absolutely out-of-control homeschoolers; another big factor is parenting, and there's family and school support and encouragement, that sort of thing. I think that homeschooling definitely helps kids with that sort of thing, and being in a particularly bad setting in public school can definitely inhibit it - but whatever method of education you choose, it is imperative for the parents to a) be there for their kids, and b) be choosy about getting teachers who are attentive and positive, as well as knowledgeable. A cousin of mine has stories about 9th-grade teachers who walk into her classroom and say, "Let's be straight, I don't want to be here and you probably don't either, so let's just get this over with." I don't ever want my kids to have to deal with that, whether or not they attend school. Of course I'm biased, but as far as schools go, I do have to give a little plug for Waldorf and Montessori style schools! :) I went to kindergarten and first grade in a Montessori. It was an amazing experience.
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All of them! Well, I should amend that to exclude the ones with lead based paint, and excessive plastic. I suppose some plastic toys are now also becoming old school.
Really though, I get nostalgic about toys that are far too outdated for me to ever remember from their glory days. Hoop and stick sets; whammy diddles; wooden frog noisemaker toys; wooden jigsaw puzzles that were actually cut with a jigsaw at home; dollhouses with real wooden furniture ... It's just all so lovely. I like toys that make you feel like you're in another world, both time-wise and imagination-wise. Modern toys leave less to the imagination. I can't pick just one old school toy. :)
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Yep! I was homeschooled all up until now, which did give me more time for toymaking. I am currently in the process of choosing a school, and I plan on becoming a nutritional consultant and holistic health practitioner. I definitely still plan on making toys through college, and through the rest of my life. I may quit doing special orders as school gets more demanding, and of course when I have kids I'll devote more of my toy making to them! :) but I don't plan on ever quitting toys permanently. It's what I love to do.
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