Featured Artist: Little Sapling Toys

Good morning!  

I'd like to introduce to you Nick and Kimber of Little Sapling Toys on this fine day.  They make all kids of wonderful natural wood toys including those ASL blocks, I included in a post a couple of weeks back.   If you would like to purchase anything from their Etsy shop, use the code LUVBLO10 to get a 10% discount between now and August 15th.

On Etsy

What do you make and what was/is the inspiration for your shop? We make wood teethers, blocks and developmental toys for young children. Our beginning inspirations included the thrill of entrepreneurship, beautiful design and our own young son.

What instances helped give you the confidence/motivation to pursue this as a career?  In 2005-2006, Nick and I traveled around the country remodeling bathrooms as an install crew for AmBath, LLC. While living in hotels and eating in restaurants daily, we would constantly talk about the businesses; what we would keep, change and how we would run things. This experience was the foundation for running a smart business with consumers in mind.

Organic Driving Toy

What is your vision for the future of your business?  We expect our retail growth to stay strong while we continue to develop new toy designs. We are currently scouting for locations within our beautiful city of Sheboygan, WI to set up our wood shop and have retail space available to the community.

What is your connection to the Deaf community? If none, how did you come up with the idea for your wonderful ASL blocks?  We have used basic sign language with our children and loved using the ASL alphabet as a teaching aid. Our ASL "I Love You" teether was an instant hit with our customers, we made our beautiful alphabet blocks, then Braille blocks and ASL alphabet blocks were a natural to follow.

Are you trained as an artist?  If yes, what degree(s) or certificates do you hold and where did you earn it/them? If no, how did you learn to make the items you offer in your shop?  I design the toys with no formal artistic training. I can just see the beauty and utility potential when I imagine the wood. Nick runs the shop and makes toys with a degree in Historic Preservation and Restoration Carpentry. He also worked as a cabinet maker at the time we started Little Sapling Toys. We are a brilliant team.

Personalized Camera

What is one thing you will be going out of your way to learn more about in the coming year to benefit your business?  Law (namely intellectual property and safety standards)

What steps are you taking to ensure your products follow applicable child safety laws?  We've had our toys XRF tested (by ESSCO Safety Check) and we are working on getting certified testing later this year. One of the reasons we invested in a laser engraver is so that we can label our toys in compliance with CPSIA standards.

Here are myriad of  places you can find Nick and Kimber on the web:

www.littlesaplingtoys.com                       

www.facebook.com/littlesaplingtoys

www.littlesaplingtoys.etsy.com

www.littlesaplingtoys.tumblr.com/

www.twitter.com/littlesaplings

www.littlesaplingtoys.blogspot.com
www.flickr.com/littlesaplingtoys
www.pandora.com/people/littlesaplingtoys
www.pinterest.com/saplingtoys

Craft: Sunny Circles Sun Catchers

The current art on my kitchen window was getting pretty faded after being up all spring, so this is what I did to replace it.  Yeah, I did it by myself without help from the kids this time because I had a pretty rough day with them and I just needed to chill a bit after bed time.  (It worked wonders, by the way...)  Tomorrow, I will let them have their way with the tissue scraps and all will be well in our house again. :)

What you need to do this yourself:

Waxed Paper

Liquid Starch

Scissors

Bowl

Paint brush
Paper Clips
Tissue Paper Scraps (I recycled some from a party)

Sharpie

Place to Dry your finished piece
Tape or Hole Punch and Ribbon

I folded one sheet each of red, yellow, white and pink tissue into rectangles about the size of a half sheet of paper and traced three different size circles onto two of them.  Then I stacked them two high so I could see the circles on top of each stack and added paperclips around the design to help hold the paper together and keep it still while I cut them out.  Squares, triangles, or just torn up scraps work well too, but I really wanted circles this time. 

Paint liquid starch on your waxed paper and add one layer of tissue circles.  Paint over them with more starch working from the center out on each tissue circle to prevent distortion of your shapes.

Add more layers of circles, overlapping them as desired until you get the look you want.  Using more layers makes a sturdier end product, which is important if you want to hang them or use them as gift tags.  (You can write on the paper with a Sharpie!)

Put a couple of heavy books around the edges to prevent curling and let it dry....

Trace various sized circles (or your favorite shape) onto the waxed paper with a sharpie and cut out. This paper cuts fast with little resistance to your scissors so it is easy to make mistakes.

Carefully remove the waxed paper from your tissue sun catcher.  If it doesn't all release, it is okay  because when you put it up to the light, you can't see the traces of waxed paper anyway.   (Unless that's the place where you wrote on it with a sharpie!)

I didn't like how mine hung with ribbon, so I ended up using some clear tape on the back to stick them directly to the window so that they laid flat.  I SO love how these turned out and would love to see pictures of your creations if you decide to make some too.

Keep it crafty!
Kristin