At Edith & George our mission is to show that we can have beautiful things, at affordable prices, and in a way that minimises environmental impact and provides opportunity not oppression; for everyone involved in the production. Our golden rule? - If the things that we do don't meet these simple criteria then we shouldn't be doing them.
We don't want to be unique, we want this way of doing things to be the norm, not the exception. I guess it was with this in mind that in a chat over the office kettle this morning I suggested that we should start to tell the story of our products more regularly - to show that beautiful, sustainable products are possible! So here we are with our first Toy Story!
Where do our fair trade wooden toys come from?
Our fair trade wooden toys are handmade in Sri Lanka by a WFTO certified fair trade producer.
The wood used is a by product of tea cultivation - yep, you heard us right, our wooden toys exist thanks to the tea industry and some very talented crafts people! The trees are grown to provide shade for the tea plants, (strong sunshine dries out the ground, whereas tea plants love humidity. Also, tea plants don’t like wind, who knew?!?).
As these trees grow bigger they need to be cut down or they'll take the moisture from the ground that is needed by the tea plants. This is where our incredible crafts people come in! The wood from these particular tree species is very light weight making it ideal for toys for babies and toddlers as the toys will also be very light and easy to handle.
How our wooden toys are made.
Our wooden toys all start life as a plank of wood, and they are 100% handmade.
First the design is printed on to the wood, then it's cut out, sanded and painted with non-toxic paint, all by hand.
This means that none of our toys are completely the same, and nor are they completely symmetrical as there is no automation involved in the process - so when we say each of our wooden toys is unique, we really mean it!
Are wooden toys better than plastic?
Our wooden toys are 100% natural. There is no plastic involved in any of our wooden toys and so not only are they upcycled from the tea plantation trees, they are also perfect for recycling and upcycling again and again. Unlike plastic, wood can be marked and knocked, but also unlike plastic, it rarely breaks as the light weight wood has a natural flex to it.
Better for Playtime?
Wooden toys are also great for encouraging open play and enable imaginations to run wild! You don't have flashing lights or wailing noises in a wooden toy so they have no set purpose or single end goal, and this makes them perfect for encouraging open play and creativity. You can stack them, build them and balance them which is great for hand to eye coordination; you can make pictures out of them, and according to Chris in our office (an actual adult apparently) they can become Space Cities, X-Games ramps and Dojos too...
Which wooden toys?
Probably the most well known wooden toys are the wooden rainbow toys and we have some fabulous ones, currently we also have stacking elephants and a super cute little London Bus. All handcrafted and hand-painted with non-toxic paints.
I hope that's given you an interesting look at the story of some of our toys - and apologies if now you'll never be able to look at one of our wooden toys without thinking about a relaxing cup of tea at the same time!
