As March unfolds, it brings with it the important reminder to honor the incredible contributions of women throughout history. At Bella Luna Toys, we love honoring women all year long and especially during Women’s History month. We proudly stand as a testament to the power of women-led businesses, championing the ethos of perseverance, empowerment, and inclusivity. Founded by a woman and run by a predominantly women-led team for its entire 20+ existence, we know the value of supporting women creators and entrepreneurs and ensuring their stories are shared. We are so lucky to work with such a talented team and to bring on products from amazing women-led companies.
We reached out to a few of these companies, Grimm’s Spiel & Holz, eeBoo, Wilded Family, and Sarah’s Silks to talk with the women behind the brand to find out how they brought their visions to life, their thoughts on creativity and play, and what being an entrepreneur means to them. We believe that giving voice to these innovative women and supporting this important month gives us all strength and inspiration and creates a ripple effect for young women and children.
Thank you to all of these amazing and inspiring women for sharing their stories!
Elke Grimm - Grimm's Spiel & Holz
The Grimm's Story:
My husband Sven and I took over a small wood manufactory almost 20 years ago - I was pregnant with our third child at the time. We immediately fell in love with the high-quality and beautiful products and knew that we wanted to bring these treasures out of their niche and into the world and all the families out there. Since then, I have been in charge of the creative side of the products and new designs, forming the heart of the family business.
Elke's thoughts on the importance of creativity and play and how Grimm's inspires that:
Our desire is to promote creativity and free play in the world because it is so important for children's development. Creativity does not only mean creating things, but also finding individual solutions in life. We are convinced that the requirements of the future need people with their own ideas and creative solutions. Free, i.e. intuitive and unintentional, play deliberately has no goal, but has incredibly valuable side effects for life: The child discovers its abilities and potential and sees itself as an individual, co-creative and valuable building block of its environment. At GRIMM'S we design simple, beautiful and modern wooden toys. All our products do not dictate play, but invite children to be creative themselves and to play with them in different ways. The toys grow with the child and always offer new uses depending on age. This makes them long-lasting companions and ideal for free play.
Elke's favorite Grimm's items that we carry at BLT:
Choosing a single favorite product is extremely difficult. I love the combinations of rather contrasting products that can come together to create something completely new. For example, I always recommend the combination of the simple geometric shapes of the Large Stepped Pyramid together with the individual organic shapes of the Four Elements Building Set. Our special design language makes it possible to combine and expand our entire range as desired. This allows maximum freedom in the composition and adapts to every individual life of big and small people.
Mia Galison- eeBoo
The eeBoo Story:
Over thirty years ago, I wanted to create a new paradigm for what it meant to be a working mother. I refused to accept the compromise of work versus family. My office was in the basement, where I could be close to my kids, and they could experience what we did. My husband Saxton and I put in long hours, and along with the help of friends and family, we grew our business while raising our children. Parenting in the same realm as a home-based business clarified our values. As we were encouraging creative thinking, open-ended play, and meaningful communication in our young children, we were also infusing them into the products we developed.
Mia's thoughts on creativity and play and how eeBoo inspires that:
We believe engaging with art fundamentally develops careful observation, creativity, innovation, and self-expression while fostering concentration, dexterity, and visual literacy. Because of this, we develop our products in consultation with educators, psychologists, writers, artists, parents, and children. In this open, dynamic process we try to practice the values we espouse, carefully listening to our collaborators and arriving together at the best outcome: products that will engage, delight, challenge, and inform. Our traditional play formats are ideal for quality family time, promoting conversation and wholesome fun across generations without the use of technology. Our products are designed to both help build relationships and cultivate a child's confidence and sense of self through self-directed independent play.
Mia's favorite eeBoo products that we carry at Bella Luna Toys:
Around the Clock 25 Piece Giant Puzzle
Tidepool 24 Watercolor pencils
Sarah Lee- Sarah's Silks
The Sarah's Silks Story:
I started making Playsilks in my kitchen sink 30 years ago when my 4 year old son Josh kept asking for costumes. I didn’t want to buy him premade polyester costumes and since he didn’t like itchy things I thought I'd dye him a square of green silk to use so he could make his own costume. He was so happy to make first a Peter Pan cape out of the green silk , then a green turtle shell and then he used it to be Robin Hood. Soon he needed blue and red to be Superman for a tunic and cape. He started using the silks with the neighborhood children for building forts, dressing up, puppet shows, small world environments. I thought that all children would enjoy them and so I started selling Playsilks.
Sarah's thoughts about creativity and play and how Sarah's Silks inspire that:
I believe that the best toys are open ended, that can be used in at least 3 ways, and that children can add their imaginations to them to make them “work”. This way they learn to rely on their own creativity and ingenuity to get through life and have richer, more fulfilling experiences.” Sarah’s Silks toys are simple, so we have wings, for example, that a child can use to pretend to be a butterfly, a fairy or a bat! Since they are just colors they are open to the child’s imagination and will be used on different days to be the prop needed for that day’s story & play.
Sarah's favorite Sarah's Silks products we carry at Bella Luna Toys:
I'm from Maine and so my favorite Sarah’s Silks that Bella Luna carries are the Northern Coast Playsilk colors that are in Bella’s special collection. They remind me of my childhood playing in the mossy woods, picking wild blueberries, and my mom’s tincture of rose hips in Maine.
Stephanie Green - Wilded Family
The Wilded Family Story:
When I became a mother, my whole world shifted. I have always loved nature and painted as soon as I could hold a brush: but it became real soul work to share the wonder of our natural world with my children as I entered motherhood. I started painting the Wilded Family products when the children were tiny and the range grew with them as we explored topics and the world around us. I hope I have shared how precious and wonderful, inspiring and fragile and ultimately how connected our planet and the animals we are blessed to share this enchanting space with is through my art. Wilded Family as a company is now 5 years old!
Building a company where we all love the same things has been a total joy and I’m always excitedly planning the next phase! Wilded Family range grew from homeschooling. Our community of parents look at the child’s learning journey with a sense of wonder, we make tools not to fill the cup but to light a fire in the imaginative learning realm. We’re passionate about helping children play and learn without stress. We want to help families nurture a place for nature in the modern home. Our community knows we are committed to kindling and growing an ethical, sustainable, profitable business and that we will do no harm environmentally and advocate for eco-friendly business.
Stephanie's thoughts on creativity and play and how Wilded Family inspires that:
We believe that every object in your home should be beautiful or functional, and we hope we make both. Everything is hand finished, or hand drawn faithfully reproduced using eco friendly methods. Parents want to create beautiful, soulful homes and to invest in products that inspire free thinking creative children. When a child plays with our products we want the art to make sense to them -- and inspire them to go find that magic outside. Everything we create works on as many creative layers and levels as we can think of. We take a long time to create toys, it usually takes about a year of thinking before we launch a new product, this lets all those extra elements filter through.
Stephanie's favorite Wilded Family product that we carry at Bella Luna Toys:
I love the teaching clock a lot. My own daughter, who’s a brilliant artist and poet, really struggled with time; the concept as well as the practical clock face. The play clock and the workbook really helped her explore independently. Now she has a really abstract watch and is utterly confident I put that down to giving her space to explore on her own with tools that spoke to her creative side.
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