N takes after her dad and loves to draw. Pack rat that I am, we have folders and folders of her drawings stashed in S' office. N also regularly inserts her drawings in my bag for me to bring to office to be used as decoration for my office cubicle.
So when my college dorm mate Lei contacted me about their new project, I was more than excited to try it. Lei’s project all started last September 2012 when Lei shared with Ziggy (her husband) about how delighted Lilly (their 4 year old daughter) was when Lei used a stuffed toy to animate what she was reading from her story book. Lei and Ziggy were also encouraging Lilly to draw to improve her fine motor skills and develop problem solving skills. Lilly eventually asked her parents to turn her toys into stuffed toys and so Pofuff was born.
Pofuff (pronounced as “Puff”) is like doing a magic trick. Lei and Ziggy believe that the process of turning drawings to stuffed toys is wonderful and magical. What the company really does is to “puff up” children’s creativity and that’s how the name was born - “Puff-fuf!”
What made this project even more attractive to me was its purpose. The project, which has turned into a business, was created to fight “technology parenting” – the tendency of modern parents to leave their children plugged into devices than being plugged to what children are supposed to experience. This certainly struck a chord with me, especially since I rely a lot on my electronic devices to get things done.
For this project, N and I sat down together and came up with 3 drawings to be converted into toys! The difficult part was narrowing it down to one. We sent her chosen drawing to Lei sometime in April. We received our the toy a little over a month later. Lei did say that they are working on reducing the waiting time. Read about N's creative journey here. Check out N's Pofuff slideshow below:
Despite being based in Australia, one thing admirable about this company is that Pofuff contacted local moms in the Philippines to become toy makers for Pofuff. Lei and Ziggy want to help them in their livelihood and teach them the wonderful craft of toymaking. Pofuff is constantly innovating so don’t be surprised to see new projects from them – perhaps drawings printed on shirts or a pillow depicting your child’s recent made-up story.
Interested? Each Pofuff toy is approximately 30cm (11.81in) tall and between 15-20cm (5.9-7.8in) wide depending on the artwork and will come in a box with a transparent front cover where a copy of the original drawing will be inserted. The toys have an introductory price of 49 AUD. However, Lei said that they do have special prices for orders from the Philippines! For more details, visit the website: www.pofuff.com
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