A young entrepreneur is working with his family to try and redefine the luxury kids gift market.
Ben Sharman has developed a new range of luxury wooden toys which he hopes will make the perfect gifts for special events such as christenings and births.
The 37-year-old from Narborough, in Leicestershire, has brought in the support of his brother and parents to design the new toys, and has named the business “plaay?”.
Together they have come up seven different animal designs, each, he said, with a modern twist and made from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) approved oak.
Now they have launched a Kickstarter appeal to raise £5,000 to get the business off the ground.
That runs until July 21 and has raised more than £1,000 so far.
Ben, who works for a packaging company in Hinckley, said: “There’s a lot of history behind the story.
“It’s a family project that we have been developing for more than three years and we are now looking for some investment.
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“The idea came about following the birth of my third child Parker when I spotted a gap in the market for luxury toys.
“I’ve been in procurement for 17 years and my mum is an artist and my dad is a craftsman, with a background designing and building tables and chairs.
“And my brother’s in design so we all decided to work together to come up with these toys.
“It all started with my family at home brainstorming designs and ideas for the range which included inspiration from the children, our favourite toys and films, shop walks, internet research and countless prototypes and testing across a wide range of materials and application methods.
“The solid oak provides fantastic wood grain definition and product durability, and all the toys have their own unique design aspects and bespoke features such as soft-touch fabrics, leather materials, calming and realistic colour tones with the iconic plaay? logo engraving.
“They are made in the Far East and we have tested the prototypes and financed all the tooling, and are now ready to got.
“We’ve put about £3,000 into it so far and are using crowdfunding to bring in some more.
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“From talking to the guys at Kickstarter we could see that it’s a great platform for people to come together and share good ideas on a global scale.
“People who pledge to help can get a toy – they are effectively pre-ordering them.
“We need to raise £5,000 to meet the minimum order quantities of 100 units across the range. Most of them will go to the people who invest and the profits will go back into making more stock, and things like redesigns and more tooling.
“Once that stock is in, people will be able to order straight from our website.”
The seven toys in the plaay? range are:
THE BEAR
Designed with Ben’s youngest child Parker, this posh bear “loves to travel, and is often seen in and around London sightseeing at Big Ben and the Tower of London and really enjoys London double decker bus trips”.
THE GIRAFFE
Designed with Ben’s eldest daughter Willow, this one is “often seen grazing in Africa enjoying nice green leaves and hot sunshine, making friends with new animals and loving a good joke”.
THE ELEPHANT
Designed with youngest daughter Autumn, this one is “big, strong and beautiful and is often seen having a long drink with friends”.
THE HIPPO
Designed with Ben’s brother Frank, the hippo is “relaxed and stress-free and loves a roll in the mud”.
THE UNICORN
This one was designed with Ben’s wife Emma. He said: “We believe in unicorns, often seen jumping over the moon and stars if you look carefully enough”.
THE SNOWMAN
Designed with his dad John, this is a “festive favourite who loves a cold snowy evening. A great gift for Christmas”.
THE CAR
Designed by Ben, this is the “iconic two stripe racing car that loves to race, often seen racing down the M1, within the speed limit I may add”.
All of the toys come with hand-finished luxury retail packaging.
Ben said eventually he would like to see the toys made in the 海角视频 – his dream would be to have a workshop inside an Oxford Street store in London.
He said: “We came up with wooden toys because if you want to buy luxury gifts for birthdays or christenings it all seems to be silverware and pottery.
“So we created a line of heirloom luxury wooded toys that are elegant, simple and ooze quality.
“They are beautiful and can be either played with or placed on a shelf to look at. They will even look good in an office.”