{"id":59385,"date":"2016-02-04T00:09:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T08:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=59385"},"modified":"2016-02-04T00:09:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T08:09:26","slug":"softie-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/59385","title":{"rendered":"Softie-making"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tWith another holiday on the horizon, I\u2019ve been doing a little gift browsing. Of course there are all the usual pinks and purples and hearts this and hearts that, but I stumbled upon an enterprise called Child\u2019s Own Studio<\/a> that claims to have perfected the art of \u201csoftie-making\u201d from children\u2019s drawings.<\/p>\n

In other words, they can take your child\u2019s drawing and turn it into a plush toy … but I like the term \u201csoftie-making\u201d better. And why might you be interested in one of these softies? I learned that young children draw from their imaginations with pure self-expression, and it\u2019s based on an understanding of what is being drawn rather than on observation.<\/p>\n

Around the age of 5, children develop a visual vocabulary, or their own unique symbolism. When they draw a cat, it will always be the same basic image, maybe altered with stripes or color. It\u2019s not until around the age of 9 or 10 that children begin to be influenced by realism and often lose their passion, frustrated that the object being drawn doesn\u2019t look exactly like what it represents. From what I can gather, there\u2019s a sweet spot of self-expression from about 5 to 9 years of age, and these plush toys serve as an excellent way to preserve that.<\/p>\n

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Snail Softie via childsown.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Inspired by a drawing from her 4-year-old son, Wendy Tsao started Child\u2019s Own Studio in 2007 as a home-based art venture in Vancouver, B.C., but she\u2019s had so many orders that she\u2019s had to expand. The softies start at $70, but that seems like a small price to pay for such a unique and personalized gift that was hand-stitched just for you. The average size of a toy is about 16\u201d, but they also offer super sizes up to 5′. And to top it all off, Child\u2019s Own Studio is enthusiastic about helping fundraising campaigns for non-profits and schools.<\/p>\n

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Scorpian Softie via childsown.com<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With another holiday on the horizon, I\u2019ve been doing a little gift browsing. Of course there are all the usual pinks and purples and hearts this and hearts that, but I stumbled upon an enterprise called Child\u2019s Own Studio that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meg_girls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}