Welcome to WESTie Wednesday, where each week we get to know a proud WEST member and their Etsy shop! Learn about Jessica and her shop Everything Little W.
"I sell natural educational toys that encourage imaginative play, such as puppet theatres, wooden peg dolls, Waldorf-inspired dolls and doll clothes, chalkboard mats, hand kits, crayon rolls and art kits. My demographic is 1-10 years olds and anyone who has children in that age bracket in their lives, for whom they would buy gifts."
"I started creating 5 years ago after I had my daughter. I had been teaching full time until she came into our lives. After we fell into a routine, I found that I needed a creative outlet and chatted with a friend who was already selling. I started by selling through her, since my items worked well with hers. I went with her to craft markets and really enjoyed myself, so when it came time to develop more ideas, I knew I could do it! I chatted with my sister over the following summer, and we decided to start creating together, and so Everything Little was born!"
"We both designed and created our own items and I was in charge of getting them to the masses (sometimes a bit tough when we were separated by two provinces). Now it's just me and I've found my passion for using my educational background to help create toys that are imagination based and fun to play with, but also have some educational value. All of my dolls, chalkboard mats, theaters, pegs, etc. are created at my dining room table often after everyone else in the house has gone to bed. Each night I put in a movie or listen to a pod cast while sewing by machine or hand, or painting as I put together each and every toy with a lot of love and attention to detail."
"As much as possible, I try to source my materials from Canadian retailers. For example, the carded wool used in all my dolls is a combination of roving sourced from a family run farm in Ontario (Egli's) and raw wool (which I clean and card) from a small farm out of Carman, MB. The doll skin is purchased from an Etsy seller out of BC, who gets it specially milled from the Netherlands. Most of my other fabrics are purchased from a small Canadian fabric shop (Funky Monkey Fabrics) out of Ontario. That being said, I also source from big box stores like Michaels and Fabricland for things like ribbon and thread."
We asked Jessica “Why Etsy?” "I started my shop to try to reach a wider audience and expand my business."
Want to see more? Be sure to check out Everything Little W on social media:
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