Drawings Become Beloved Toys

I recently came across something that I thought was very fun: a company called Child' s Own Studio. Child's Own Studio will custom making soft toys for children based on their very own artwork:



I would encourage everyone to check out the website to see some more examples of the awesome stuffed creations that come straight from a child's own imagination. Child's Own Studio is Canadian based and "started with a simple idea: to make a recognizable comfort toy for a 4 year-old boy based on his drawing." According to the website, Child's Own Studio will usually charge between $70-$130 (Canadian) per toy and will ship to both Canada and the United States.

Although this doesn't seem to directly relate to libraries, I was trying to think of how I could spin it to be relevant for us library folk, so here's what I've come up with. Your library could hold a children's program centered around...let's say monsters. You could read books like "The Librarian from the Black Lagoon" by Mike Thaler and "Your Pal Mo Willems Presents Leonardo the Terrible Monster" by Mo Willems. Then, have the children draw their most creative monster and display those drawings in the library. Then you can either have a contest where patrons vote on their favorite drawing, or you can have a draw to pick one of the drawings and send the winning drawing to Child's Own Studio to have it made into a plush toy for the winner. It's a great way to promote creativity and the toys that come out are just so darn cute!