Finding Peace Through The Joyful Art of Toymaking
“You Time”
You sat down with a sigh, relief flooding your body. It had been such a long week.
There were still things on your list of things to do, but miraculously, you had somehow managed to cross off all of the urgent tasks. You shake your head as though that act could toss the pressing insistence of responsibility from your thoughts, even briefly. “I’ll attend to you,” you whisper to the clamoring thoughts of chores and budgets demanding your attention. “But first,” you smile, firmly putting the thoughts in their place, “I’m taking a little ‘me’ time.”
The Therapy
Reaching out, you touch the half-finished toys on the table. Throughout the week, you had been able to sneak a moment here or there to work on them, loving the pops of color that they were starting to take on. Something about the meditative and happy work made you breathe easier, and you were starting to crave these precious moments of toymaking.
Last night, all you had managed to get done was to prep the silkscreens, but that was all right. It meant that tonight you could jump straight into your favorite part.
Applying the silk screens was simple. You liked how the guidelines made it easy to make sure that each letter was centered and straight. Taking your squeegee, you dip into the odorless toy-safe paint. You have mixed the color yourself, and its brightness perks you up. It goes on smoothly, creamier than soft butter. It had taken only moments for you to perfect the technique, carefully scraping off the excess paint until it was smooth.
Pulling off the stencil always makes you catch your breath. 98% of the time, the resulting image was pristine. Seeing the perfect letter would release tension in your back, and you could feel the air escaping through your lips, not realizing you had been holding your breath. You cannot help but feel proud every time it works.
Peace Even in Mistakes
Sometimes, though rarely, the image after the pull wasn’t perfect. Perhaps you pressed too hard and squished paint under the edge. Or the dried toy-safe paint underneath was uneven, making the paint from the stencil bleed around the gaps. Once, you had rushed to use a wet stencil
“You Got This.”
Life is full of challenges. The ups and downs of your many responsibilities can be wearing, leaving you feeling thin and worn. Recent studies have indicated that it is of vital importance to our mental, emotional, and physical well-being to take a break to breathe, be creative, and rest! Those times for rest are some of the most valuable and healthy parts of your day as you rejuvenate your mind, spirit, and body. A rested mind can think more clearly and work more efficiently, making it easier for you to tackle the many mountains you need to climb.
Art Therapy
One form of self-care that is often overlooked, but can be incredibly rewarding, is making something with your hands. Art therapy, a form of psychotherapy, uses creative expression to promote healing and well-being and has become an increasingly popular way to reduce stress and promote relaxation. It is increasingly recognized as a valid and effective treatment for various mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
There are many types of art therapy, but one, in particular, explodes with benefits for yourself, your loved ones, and the environment. And that is the joyful art of toymaking!
The Joy in Toymaking
The peace and joy that are found in toymaking have deep roots. There is a reason that Santa Claus is so jolly and that Geppetto, Pinocchio’s father, left a legacy as a kind, loving and gentle soul. These famous toymakers’ skill and generosity brought them deep peace and joy as they brought laughter, learning, and playtime to children worldwide.
Historically, the joy of toymaking has been reserved only for the knowledgeable, trained, and skilled. Making playable toys took thousands of dollars in tools and supplies and years of research, training, and practice. But now, with BridgeWood Toymaker Kits, anyone can easily and safely make gorgeous and playable toys for little ones. The joy of toymakers worldwide is now something you can experience and enjoy!
Making eco-friendly wooden toys is a DELIGHTFUL way to relax. There is something deeply satisfying about creating something from scratch. This is particularly true when it comes to making beautiful toys that will bring small children joy while also fostering their love for learning. Toymaking provides a wonderful outlet for your creativity, but it also offers numerous benefits for both the maker and the recipient. How? In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of self-care and art therapy through the lens of toymaking.
Taking the time to practice self-care can increase productivity. So when you care for yourself, you have more energy and focus to devote to your work and other responsibilities.
Making toys keeps your mind and hands just busy enough that you can set aside your anxieties and worries, forcing your mind to concentrate just enough on the toymaking that it has to let go of those draining, unproductive thoughts. Instead, it frees your mind to dream and to think more productively. Creating beautiful and good things with your hands helps you to create beautiful and good things with your mind. This means that when you get up from your toymaking, you feel more energized and prepared to tackle the pressing and challenging things that have been weighing you down.
Making wooden toys requires you to be present in the moment and fully engaged in the task at hand. This can help to cultivate a sense of mindfulness, which has been shown to have numerous mental and physical health benefits. Being present cannot be underestimated in a world where we are constantly pummeled with advertisements, screens, and loud noises. Our modern minds are continually overstimulated, making it easy to miss the beauty and wonder of each ordinary moment.
Making toys brings you back into the moment, helping you to enjoy and love life again. And by working with natural materials and beautiful paint, you gain a sense of what is REAL and good in a way that a screen can never give you. This helps to deeply relax your mind and help you to refocus on the most important things in life.
Taking care of yourself can help reduce stress and anxiety. When you prioritize your needs, you become more resilient to the challenges and difficulties of life. You are better equipped to handle stressors and feel less overwhelmed. And working with your hands can be incredibly calming and relaxing. Focusing on a task like sanding or painting a wooden toy can help quiet your mind and reduce stress and anxiety. BridgeWood’s simple, meditative process of ‘Stick, Scrape, Reveal and Seal’ creates beautiful toys in a relaxing and calming way. Repeatedly, people have shared how deeply satisfying it is to pull away a ‘messy’ silk screen stencil only to reveal a perfect image underneath.
One of our favorite reflections in this happy ‘reveal’ moment is to think about how messy and complicated our lives can be. It is easy to think of certain situations as hopeless or impossibly difficult. It reminds us of how, after applying the paint, the stencil can look like a mess, even when the paint has been carefully scraped smooth. You can no longer see the image underneath and have no idea if your work will pay off. But that is also why the process is so deeply satisfying. That is why pulling the stencil back to see that perfect image can give you a lovely sense of relief. And it makes us think that in the other messy things that are happening in our lives, things will also work out perfectly, even if we can’t do anything but the mess right now.
Even when mistakes are made while making toys, they are easy to fix. For example, a swipe with a baby wipe or damp paper towel can quickly remove wet paint. A little elbow grease with sandpaper can completely remove a mistake, making it easy to start over. Or a little work (by a responsible adult) with an Exacto knife or a detail brush can make the tiny tweaks that make an image look perfect. As disappointing as a mistake can be, it is WONDERFUL when it is so easy to fix. And again, it brings hope that the mistakes and difficulties we encounter in other areas of our lives are also fixable!
When we care for ourselves, we are better equipped to care for others. When stressed, overwhelmed, or exhausted, we are more likely to snap at those around us or withdraw from social interactions. Practicing self-care can help us show up as our best selves in our relationships.
But this is where toymaking REALLY thrives. Toymaking, although providing immediate benefits for you, is ultimately designed to help your relationships to grow and thrive. You are devoting your time to making something intended to bring laughter and playtime for your loved ones into the world. You are creating something profoundly educational to help your loved ones’ minds grow and thrive. You are creating something that tells them you deeply love and care for them. And, with normal use, your wooden toys will last for many, many years. The story of your love for your beloved children, who receive your toys, will be carried down through the years, helping you to maintain your relationships with the people you love the most.
Relationships can be difficult, and making toys won’t solve every problem we can encounter with them. But homemade toys can be the stepping stones to building bridges. They are a way to communicate your love for a small child and your hope for their lives and future. They are a beautiful way for you to get the much-needed rest you need so that when you face more difficult challenges, you feel calm and ready to handle them.
For some people, expressing their emotions through words can be difficult. Art therapy provides an alternative form of communication, allowing individuals to express themselves through creative expression.
This is a POWERFUL reason why creating toys is a wonderful way to express yourself. What are you saying to your loved ones through the gorgeous, natural, and educational toys you make for them? You are saying:
- I love you
- I care about your education
- I want your life to be full of beauty and color
- I care about the earth and want you to enjoy its goodness
- I want you to laugh
- I want you to play
- I want to play and laugh with you
- You bring me joy
- You give me hope for the future
- I want to invest my time and energy into making life wonderful for you
- I know toys are important to you, and I want you to know I am paying attention to the things that matter to you.
- Art is wonderful, and I enjoy it!
- Mistakes are normal and natural.
- Things do not have to be perfect to be worth treasuring.
- You are worth my time, love, and attention.
- I treasure you.
- I love you.
Creating art can also help increase self-awareness. Through the creative process, we may uncover thoughts and feelings we were unaware of. This process of self-discovery through the joyful art of making toys might surprise you. You might discover a richness of love, beauty, generosity, hope, and joy in your heart that the disappointments and bitterness of life have suffocated. The seeds for all of these things are in your heart already. And making a beautiful toy that will bring joy to a child might be the ‘water’ to help those seeds grow and thrive.
We live in a ‘plastic’ world. In many ways, we are used to the efficiency and ‘perfection’ that plastic gives us. But we are learning that plastic, as useful as it can be, has robbed us of connecting to nature. Making wooden toys is a beautiful way to restore your relationship with nature and pass on that love for natural things to young children.
Wood is a natural material. Once it was alive and you can see the marks of its life bound up in the material. The long grain tells you which way the tree grew ‘up.’ The end grain can tell you whether it survived drought or had years where it drank abundant fresh water and nutrients. Marks in the wood tell you if branches broke off by a bouncing squirrel if the tree survived a fire or attacks by fungus or insects.
When making your beautiful toys, we recommend you take time to study the wood. What is it telling you? Feel its smoothness. Feel its weight. Take in its natural beauty.
Although it’s a personal preference, we love the beauty of raw wood so much that we prefer to use BridgeWood’s toy-safe paint to merely highlight, not cover, the beauty of the wood. When we first started making toys, we covered every toy with paint. But working more with this wonderful, natural material has made our love for nature and the environment grow. Now, we try to not only preserve the beauty of the wood by how we paint the toys but also have realized that our responsibility for the trees and land that produced this amazing material are given the respect and care they need to thrive.
Making wooden toys is a great way to learn new skills and challenge yourself. You are becoming a Toymaker! Although there are many wonderful parts to your identity that ‘Toymaker’ cannot encompass, once you are a Toymaker, you are ALWAYS a Toymaker! And Toymakers are known for their love, generosity, and desire to make children laugh and grow. Developing the skills to make toys is easy and fun with the BridgeWood Toymaker Kit. And having new skills helps you to grow in confidence and self-esteem.
Making wooden toys allows you to express your creativity and imagination in a tangible way. For example, BridgeWood Toymaker Kits have a palette of beautiful, toy-safe paints that complement each other. You can mix your favorite colors, choose your unique palette, and choose phrases or cute animal, holiday, or vehicle stencil images to personalize your toys. BridgeWood also has many online tutorials with free templates, color pattern guides, and video instructions that break down each step so you can easily recreate adorable designs using your color palette. There are BILLIONS of ways to customize your toys using the tools and supplies provided in your kit!
Experienced artists might also want to put their spin on their toys, creating ‘buzzles’ and images that reflect their style. We have seen amazing creations from talented artists who made playable art for their loved ones. If you have a vision, you can bring it to life with the toy-safe supplies in your BridgeWood Toymaker Kit!
Making wooden toys is not only good for your well-being, but it can also benefit others. You can give the toys you make as gifts to children in your life or donate them to local charities that work with children. Your time, talent, and effort will bring the gift of learning, laughter, and playtime! Knowing that you’re positively impacting someone else’s life is incredibly rewarding. Remember! Santa, who gives away all of his toys, is JOYFUL. And it is because of his secret: bringing joy, hope, and love to others is the best way to bring joy, hope, and love to yourself!
Homemade wooden toys make wonderful personalized gifts that will be treasured for years. Whether you are making a toy for your child or someone else’s, the fact that it was made with love and care will be appreciated.
Remember to sign and seal your name and date on your Made-With-Love toys. Many years from now, the children and adults who enjoy and play with your toys will know they were made by someone who wanted to bring laughter and happiness into the world. They will be able to look at your name and remember that you were someone who cared deeply about them.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of accomplishment that comes from creating something with your hands. Seeing the tangible result of our efforts can help us feel more confident in our abilities and increase our sense of self-worth. When you finish a wooden toy, you can take pride in having made something that will bring joy to a child. Your toys will be unique and last for YEARS with normal use and care. When you sign your Made-With-Love toy, you will know that the time spent creating the toy wasn’t just good for YOU but was a time that will continue to bring goodness, joy, laughter, and beauty into the world. The toys you made are only starting their journey; they are about to become the playthings that will delight small children for many years. And you are the one who made that laughter and playtime possible through the relaxing and hopeful time you spent making the toys.
You will love the joy you get in knowing you brought something good and beautiful into the world!
There are almost too many benefits to making wooden toys to describe! And all of them are within your grasp with a BridgeWood Toymaker Kit.
Take some time to rest and feel rejuvenated. Take some time to fall in love with GIVING something good, beautiful, and wholesome to another person. Take time to get to know yourself and be surprised and delighted by the beautiful things you can create.
Making wooden toys won’t solve all of your problems. But they are an excellent and HAPPY way to rediscover the beauty and wonder in this difficult world.
Learn more about how you can easily create beautiful toys in our Shop!
