Empower. Create. Play.

At KidEssence, our handmade toys help smart & savvy parents encourage growing minds to learn through love, laughter + play via toys that stimulate the intellect and build self-esteem.

Childhood is but a fleeting moment in time. Parents, you know this all too well. By making the most of every beautiful moment with toys that foster creativity in your kids, you begin a lifelong journey of character building + kindness, learning + exploration, in everything they do in life.

KidEssence. For learning + growing. For play. For kids.

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Making the Most of the Solar Eclipse

It's been all over the news, and social media. Every other post or reports seem to be about this Monday's Solar Eclipse. The first in 99 years that it will be viewable from across the United States. It's exciting to be able to witness rare events like this. We prepared early and ordered our eclipse glasses. We don't plan on traveling to a town that is in the path of totality though. We do know several people that either is traveling or live in the path. Truly lucky for them! For us, we will see 71% of the sun obscured. Enough to notice some change of the sun, at 1:30-2:30 pm will be i a perfect position from our house. We've been reading up with Erin on the solar eclipse and what it means. She's really excited to see it!

As I sent out a new batch of stuffed animals to MADE in Jackson, WY this week I realized, they are in the path of totality! And what does that mean- Jackson, WY will be bombarded with a large amount of eclipse viewers this weekend through Monday. I started thinking, what other retailers that we partner with are in the path of totality? And isn't this a perfect opportunity to shop small local business, especially those that promote handmade products!

So, we've compiled a list of a few stores (we will add throughout the weekend), that sell handmade products and located in the path of totality. If you happen to be in one of these locations these next few days, make some time to check it out. After all, the eclipse only lasts for a few minutes. Might as well make the rest of your visit count too, right?

Below is a list of shops that are in/close to the path of totality (90% and above)

Starting with our retailers:

MADE in Jackson, WY- 97.3%

Vintage Willows/Willow Baby in Loveland, CO- 95.1%

Project Studio in Marietta, GA- 97.4%

Old Delta Rag in Des Arc, AR- 90.5%

Some other retailers that have some of our favorites products- we highly recommend looking for The Idea Box Kids:

Green Bean Books + Art of STEM Play Store in Portland, OR- 99.2%

Treehouse Artisans in Manor, KY- 95.5%

Growing KidEssence

3 years ago, we would have never thought that seeing our products on store shelves would be a reality so when the opportunity came to us locally, we had all sorts of emotions running through our veins. Excitement- this could really be a possibility; Nnervousness- what if the owners don't like our product? Anxiety- how do we become successful at wholesale? What steps do we need to take to make this successful? Fear- what if we fail?

We've always known that our dream is to live in a world where every child is empowered through the skills they discover while their imagination runs wild. In order to make this dream a reality, we knew we needed to work hard to get our products on store shelves.

As of today, we are currently partnered with 10 brick + mortar boutiques across the U.S. But that's not enough to achieve our dream. We know we need to up our game. And in order to do that, we have to make smart financial decisions.

That's why we are happy to announce that KidEssence is crowdfunding a 0% interest loan on Kiva. Kiva is the first and largest micro-lending service in the world that has distributed $709 million over 10 years, in 85 different countries, among 1.5 million small businesses.

We are currently in a private fundraising period, during which we have 15 days to get 7 lenders in order to make it on the public platform where anyone on Kiva can lend to us. The funds from this loan will go towards helping us to increase the visibility of KidEssence in the marketplace by perfecting our product packaging and gaining top notch marketing tools to boost our presence in the children's educational toy industry.

We would like to ask you to lend as little $25, $50 or $100 (which you will get back!) so that we can progress to the public fundraising period. If you would like to support us, please follow this link to my profile page https://www.kiva.org/lend/1331290. This is the only way your loan will be tracked as coming through us. Thanks for your support, we are honestly so grateful that you choose to value small handmade businesses like ours.

UPDATE: Our Kiva loan has been fully funded!

Erin's Review of her Mermaid Doll

The hardest part of our job at KidEssence is having a 6-year old daughter constantly looking over our shoulders as we create new products. She would LOVE to have the prototype of everything we make, but it just doesn't happen. We like to spoil her friends and our family's kids too, get outside opinions and reviews of our products as we develop them. As our only child, we try really hard not make her feel entitled to everything as well. So, once a year, she will be the recipient of a prototype. She can be a really tough critic too! She's waited so long to receive one of our dolls, and this year, her patience paid off. At the end of our photoshoot, Erin got to keep the mermaid doll. She was SO happy and excited! At the end of the day, Erin decided to share her review of the doll:

As you can see, it's just.....just...so....perfect! :D You shop our new crochet collection including our mermaid doll here.

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