by Jen Biundo

If you take a stroll down the baby aisle of any big-box store, the standard fare of plastic battery-operated toys can assault the senses with loud noises and bright flashing lights.

After the birth of her daughter in 2007, Montessori teacher Janice Kearley envisioned a different kind of baby toy – simple, safe and handmade with love from natural materials.

That vision paid off, and in the last two years, Kearley, 36, has created a bustling cottage industry of handcrafted baby toys in her Buda home. Like many 21st century artisans, Kearley primarily connects with her customer base online through marketplace websites such as Etsy.com. And as the word spreads, her business, Pinkhouse Handworks, continues to grow.

A perfect fit
Kearley and her husband Stephen have made their home in old town Buda, in the house owned for decades by electrician Bart Selman and his family. It’s a serene space full of handmade furniture and decorations, with a slew of musical instruments hung on the walls and a sprawling garden and chicken coop out back.

Stephen, a professional woodworker, has set up a shop behind the house, while one room inside is devoted to Janice’s crafts. Baby toys in various stages of assembly are neatly tucked into bins, while stacks of brightly colored yarn wait their turn with the crochet hook.

The combination of handmade items and Montessori philosophy comes naturally to Kearley. She learned to knit and crochet at the age of seven, and over the years she’s experimented with a number of crafts, such as sewing, felting, sculpture and papermaking. Living on a farm on the outskirts of Austin in her 20s, she delved into the concepts of sustainability and the DIY (Do It Yourself ) ethic, picking up skills like spinning and animal husbandry.

“I’ve always loved to learn new kinds of handworks,” Kearley said. “I like to work with my hands, I like creating things.”
Along with crafts, Montessori education has been a lifelong love for Kearley and her family. The Montessori system encourages child-led discovery under the direction of teachers known as guides.

Kearley’s mother taught at Austin Montessori School, which she and her two sisters attended. In 1993 Kearley began working there as an assistant, and by 1998 she had completed the training to be a certified guide for three to six year olds.

“Since 1972, we’ve continuously had someone in our family working or going to the school,” Kearley said. “It’s the center of our family and it’s our community.”

Growing a business
When Janice and Stephen decided to have a baby and she became pregnant with their daughter Ruth in 2007, she wasn’t planning on being a stay-at-home mom.

“I made elaborate plans to stay as a guide,” Kearley said. “Not having been a parent before, I thought I could manage continuing the job as a guide.”

She returned to the classroom with a three-month-old infant in tow, and her mother went with her to assist with childcare. But the professional and parenting demands spread her too thin and she made the difficult decision to turn in her notice at the job that had been her passion for more than a decade.

Kearley finished out the last four months of the school year, and settled into life at home with her daughter. That meant more time for crafts.

While on maternity leave, Kearley had begun experimenting with Montessori-inspired baby toys. She turned to friends who were certified in Montessori training for the newborn – three age group, and gathered ideas.

“Originally, I was just making them for Ruth,” Kearley said. “I didn’t have time as a guide and a mom to ponder having a business.”

She realized there was a market for her toys, but initially she didn’t conceive of it as actually launching a full-fledged business.

“I knew people had small business, but I knew a lot of times they failed,” Kearley said.

Instead, she would start small, developing a few items and selling them in a limited number of locations. Within a few months, Kearley had experimented with ideas and created a small product line.

“A lot of times toys are flashy in trying to entertain a baby, but they’re over-stimulating,” Kearley said. “These are simple toys made of natural materials that are easy to handle.”

The most popular item is a bag with five baby toys that retails for $35, or individually for $8 – $12. The bag contains a string of wooden beads, a crocheted black and white rattle, interlocking wooden disks, a wooden egg in a cup and a peg in a cup. Kearley also makes circular crocheted rattles and wooden and crocheted hanging toys.

The toys come with a small instruction sheet telling parents when to offer them to the baby. The rattle, disk and beads are intended for babies as young as three months old, when the infant becomes interested in exploring objects with their hands and mouth. The two cup toys are meant to be introduced around eight months, when babies start trying to fit objects together.

As Montessori toys, they’re meant to be displayed in an uncluttered way.

“As opposed to having everything piled on one shelf, you might have two or three toys out,” Kearley said. “From early on you’re modeling this order and removing clutter. One thing nice about that is you get to implement rotation. When you put things out they’re fresh again.”

Often purchased as gifts, Kearley knew that beautiful packaging would be essential, and she settled on lavender organza bags tied with ribbon.

“It was so fun to figure out all the little details,” Kearley said.

Besides being in keeping with Montessori philosophy, Kearley knew the toys had to be safe. Before selling the toys, Kearley had them lab tested for compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

“I just couldn’t risk not doing it,” she said.

A new kind of home-based business
While Kearley may slowly expand the product line, the key to not getting overwhelmed is keeping a small number of items that she can easily make in multiples. As it is, the orders are flowing in as fast as she can comfortably handle in her production time of evenings and toddler naps.

Slowly and organically, her small side project has grown into a full-fledged business, and in the last year she’s grossed more than $11,000.

Kearley initially found a market home for her toys at Austin Baby, a store that focuses on natural products such as cloth diapers and slings. The Yellow Sweater, a Buda knitting shop, provides a local outlet. And her business got a boost when the well known Michael Olaf Montessori Company began selling her toys in their catalogue.

But many of the sales occur online. Kearley created a website for Pinkhouse Handworks, and a corresponding page on Etsy.com, the virtual version of an open-air market where independent crafters sell handmade wares.

“You don’t have a storefront, and people aren’t walking by,” Kearley said. “Esty is nice because you are in a place where people search for other things, but you have to get them to come to you.”

The internet version of word-of-mouth plays a huge role, Kearley learned. A link on a popular blog can translate into hundreds of hits, while being listed on the “Etsy Finds” newsletter led to a number of sales.

“It’s been neat to be in this business mode and hook into the way online businesses work,” Kearley said.

As her business expands, Kearley keeps a foot in the Montessori world by working as a consultant, and collaborates with another guide making handmade mobiles under the name of Montessori in Motion. Her husband’s side project, handcrafted toddler furniture, may eventually share a virtual storefront with his wife’s crafts.

“I really trust in the momentum of this,” Kearley said.