This week for work at home Wednesday I wanted to feature a family who started a cottage business making handcrafted wooden toys.
Meet Amy Sharp, and be sure to read all the way to the end for a special discount code. It will be available for one week from today. 
What got you interested in wooden toys and why did you decide to launch a business around them?
My husband is a classically trained master carpenter from the UK and he has made me become interested in wood over the last decade. We have rehabbed three old homes together and that started my love affair with power tools and lumber yards. I become interested in custom woodwork and trim and then just started learning about wood. We also have some land in the country and my husband would teach me the different types of tress and such.
When our first son was born I slowly started learning that wooden toys were the best.
They were the toys that got played with most, had less issues with recalls, and were the most aesthetically pleasing.
We would buy wooden toys and always think that we should make them!!!
So we just started- Joe always made wooden blocks and simple toys, so we just thought others might like them too.
We then after the last round of recalls (Thomas the Tank Engine) got tired of it all and decided to make some and then we branched out into maple teethers for our second son after becoming more and more informed of the dangers of BPA and such. I just started an etsy shop thinking we would just sell blocks and then it organically grew into many toys and teethers.
Why are wooden toys great for kids and for the environment?
Wooden toys are safe- no BPA to worry about and NO batteries!!! I think simple equals creativity. I like the Montessori and Waldorf way of life- I like watching a child decide what they want to play instead of being told by a battery voice ya know? I think blocks and figures and such make for wonderful creative play!
The eco side of wooden toys are that they are used for a long time and can be passed down! They are not plastics that will eventually fill a landfill. As much as we love wood we still have other plastic toys in our home (it is so hard to say no to grandparents and such!) We do, but we try very hard to pass them on or give them away instead of throwing away. But often- they break before they can even be loved a second time around.
It makes me sad. We use Ohio maple and recycled materials to package and ship- we want to become as green as possible!
How do you market your business?
I have been so lucky to have some amazing folks talk about and review our products on the web. It is seriously gorgeous the way the blog world has helped us get noticed. I use twitter and I also blog about Little Alouette on my personal blog and the shop blog. I am an editor for Kirtsy.com and that has been wonderful for folks coming over to my personal site and taking a look at the shop.
Etsy is a beautiful thing too. I have been blown away by the kindness of my fellow Etsy shop owners. I love that I have a community. I am looking into some advertising for 2009, but word of mouth has been an incredible thing for us.
These cool folks have chatted about us lately:
Design Mom, {frolic!}, Celebrity Baby Blog, babycenter, petit elfant, kirtsy.com, skimbaco, resadesign, SimpleLovely, Decor8 blog, We Covet, SMALL magazine, and Australian magazine LMNOP.
We are also thrilled to be in select Whole Foods Markets in the Mid Atlantic region and this gives me goosebumps! I can’t stop smiling when I think about little wee one’s getting some wood in their stockings this holiday!
Now for the discount code:
Get 10% off with promo code LA10% – just leave it in message to seller. Coupon code expires Wed, Oct 28th.
Thanks Amy for sharing your story
Are you thinking about launching an online business marketing to green and natural parents?
