What is your business called and what does it do?

Cate and Levi is a Toronto-based brand that creates eco-friendly toys from premium reclaimed or recycled materials, transforming the materials into one-of-a-kind creatures.

What made you want to do this work?

Cate & Levi was founded in 2008 after my first son Levi was born. Although I had graduated from law school and practiced corporate law, “making” has always been my true calling. My mom is an avid crafter and my father is a small business owner – you may say that I am the perfect marriage of both!

What problem did you want to solve with the business?

As my wife and I awaited the birth of our first child, we noticed that there was a lack of one-of-a-kind, responsibly made, and beautifully designed products for children. I decided to create a unique collection of products that would be intricately crafted and environmentally responsible. At first, I started by designing a handful of stuffed animals made from upcycled sweaters, which quickly became the brand’s signature pieces which are now distributed and collected around the world.

Who are your clientele/demographics?

Our target demographic is predominantly parents and grandparents who care about gifting something special and also are interested in how and where things are made.

How does your business make money? How does it work?

We manufacture eco-friendly kids’ products in Toronto and sell them across North America. While we have an e-commerce site, Amazon is our biggest sales channel and has helped us grow our customer base outside of just the GTA.

Where in the city can we find your profession?

Our main production facility and warehouse where all of the toys are made is in The Junction in Toronto.

What is the best question a prospective customer could ask a member of your profession when comparing services? Give the answer as well.

Many people ask “Why should we pay more for your products?” The answer is that our toys are one of a kind, made in Canada from eco-friendly materials and great quality that we guarantee for life.

What is the best part about what you do? What is the worst part?

The best part is getting to work in a highly creative industry. The hardest part is competing against cheap, imported products.

What is your favourite joke about your own profession?

Why did the belt get promoted in the factory? It had excellent “waist management” skills!

Where can we follow you?

Instagram

PAY IT FORWARD: What is another local business that you love?

Fluf lunch bags

The post Homegrown Business: Josh Title of Cate and Levi appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

TOYS

Now that we live in a world in which the letters “MCU” don’t require explanation, kids and immature grownups alike are spoiled for toy options. Hasbro’s excellent Marvel Legends line continues to deliver, with deep cut releases of characters like Vulcan, Speedball, and Howard the Duck in 2022 alone. Over in the Absurd Heck Yeah Why Not collector space, recent crowdfunded releases include a 32-inch Galactus megafigure and, setting Marvel aside, a new 1:1-scale Ghostbusters proton pack. Coming in at a cool USD $399.99 apiece, these limited run, niche items are some of the most exciting – if inaccessible for most collectors – toys in recent years.

Comic book and sci-fi geeks are probably better off picking up one of the recent Black Panther: Wakanda Forever tie-in releases, like the kid-friendly electronic mask or claws. If we had one complaint about Wakanda Forever, a film starring the coolest underwater superhero this side of South Park’s Seaman, it’s that there weren’t nearly enough sharks. The recent Attuma “Shark Mask” is a tentative step towards rectifying that, though we’re still waiting on some kind of 32-inch Giant Killer Mutant Shark figure to pose next to our Galactus. (Speaking of sharks, the relatively new Nerf Megalodon is also pretty cool. Just sayin’.)

The Skywalker Saga may have ended, but the Star Wars tie-in brigade never ceases its relentless march forward. While there are pricier, “battle-ready” options out there, we’re partial to the latest run of quasi-customizable saber in the “Lightsaber Forge” line. Get your hands on the Darksaber from TV’s The Mandalorian, for example, and you can easily swap out saber parts with the Forge-brand Darth Maul or Darth Vader toys. Cool stuff.

GAMING

Return to Monkey Island – the name alone triggers tears of nostalgia from a certain breed of gamer – is one of the funniest adventure games in a long-running and beloved series of funny adventure games. Over the course of a dozen or so hours, players guide returning characters Guybrush Threepwood, Elaine Marley, and their arch-enemy, zombie pirate LeChuck, in a quest for lost treasure, a fabled island, and, well, general shenanigans. The gameplay of the Monkey Island point-and-click games hasn’t really evolved over the years, but these games have always been more about their absurd scenarios and absurdist humour (just go look up “rubber chicken with a pulley”) than anything else. This one happens to be one of the best.

Flying under the radar thanks to the latest God of War, the recent Bayonetta III is a fine conclusion to a fine action series. Over-the-top, kitschy, silly, sure. But also some of the smoothest combat in all gaming, with protagonist(s) Bayonetta(s) flipping and cartwheeling and dodging and dashing up walls and generally looking like Devil May Cry’s Dante on steroids. The story, such as it is, involves yet more multiversal shenanigans, but it’s all in service of wonderful set pieces against enormous enemies and fantastically crumbling landscapes. Gamers nostalgic for a simpler (PS2) era of hardcore action gaming will find much to love here.

As for big name releases, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet is finally here, and…. it’s pretty good! Or should that be “they”, since technically it’s two games? Anyway, Pokégeeks looking to build their pokédecks will have a great time exploring the brand new open worlds and tracking down dozens of new monsters. While nothing will ever quite compare to that first moment we snagged a Squirtle in the wilds of Pokémon Blue on Gameboy, it’s still pretty special capturing that fully 3D-rendered Dragapult or Tyranitar in Violet on Switch.

Finally, on the board gaming front, we’ve become increasingly accustomed to “legacy” style games which are played out over weeks and months, with players permanently modifying the game board each round. Explore the rooms of Betrayal Legacy, for example, and you might uncover some new mystery feature that requires you to plant a sticker directly on a room tile, permanently modifying that room. Or, in the brand new Risk Shadow Forces, a near future adventure that plays out across fifteen(!) scenarios, the outcome of each determining what comes next. Surprises abound, as players never quite know what lurks around the corner in each new playthrough, or how the consequences of one decision might affect something many sessions later.

BOOKS

Rings of Power might have sucked, but Tolkien’s original Lord of the Rings trilogy remains eternal. There are about a gazillion different special editions, re-releases, and more that readers can devour, but for our money no real Rings collection is complete without at least one hardcover edition containing Tolkien’s original illustrated map of Middle-earth. While we love the Alan Lee and David Howe illustrations, there’s still something special about reading the books as Tolkien intended: with only his map, and your imagination, for your guide.

TECH

Cloud storage is worth it – Google Drive subscriptions are remarkably cheap! – but there’s never been a better time to invest in some physical storage media to keep hold of everything offline. Just. in. case… It’s kind of a shock how cheap hard drives have gotten these days, with 2TB HDDs – like this one from Seagate – coming in at barely $100. Get one, fill it up with every photo and home video you’ve ever taken, and rest easy when the inevitable Internet Apocalypse happens.

Speaking of affordable tech, while there’s a time and a place for those sleek, fancy MacBooks, the modern wave of hybrid tablet/laptops is also a great idea for a holiday gift or simply a portable computing option when you don’t want to shell out $1k per device. We’ve been impressed so far in our time with the newest Lenovo Ideapad, a 15″ laptop cheap enough to be mistaken for a tablet. It’s no powerhouse and may not be a wise choice for a gamer, but it does what a laptop is supposed to do, with 128 GB of storage which would pair nicely with a Cloud storage subscription or external HDD. Budget-conscious shoppers should keep an eye out for this one, especially if it goes on sale.

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For more gift ideas, check out last year’s Toronto Guardian Holiday Gift Guide here.

The post Toronto Guardian’s Geeky Gift Guide Gives Good Gift Goals for 2022 appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

What is your business called and what does it do?Barumba Play. We create imaginative toys designed with kids and parents in mind. Our first product is an 11-piece play couch made right here in Ontario. It is washable, waterproof, modular foam blocks. The pieces can be used as a couch or turned into forts, tunnels, houses, and anything you can imagine!

What made you want to do this work?

When the first lockdown happened in March 2020, I was a Partner working as a CPA at my family’s accounting firm. Attempting to do tax season, take my firm remote and watch two young children at home led me to experience burnout and depression. Sewing fabric toys and exploring my creativity became my path back to health.

What problem did you want to solve with the business?

When I needed to do client meetings during lockdown, the toys in our home were not keeping my kids engaged for very long. So it seemed like there was a need for more open-ended imaginative toys that could be cleaned, didn’t make noise, wouldn’t break and could be played with by one child or several.

We want to create toys that allow every play experience to be different so that each play session feels new and fun even though the toy is the same.

Who are your clientele/demographics?

Mostly moms with younger children, but also generous grandmothers, aunts and friends.

How does your business make money? How does it work?

At the moment we are direct-to-consumer so we only sell via our website. For future products that will be smaller, we will likely explore retail opportunities.

Where in Toronto can we find your profession?

While we are based in Toronto, we don’t really want you showing up at our warehouse finding us elbow-deep in boxes. So you can find us on our website.

What is the best question a prospective customer could ask a member of your profession when comparing services? Give the answer as well.

Why do I need a play couch? We played with the couch cushions when I was a kid!

Play couches are a unique new toy category that provides so much function to the entire family. One child uses it to practice gross motor skills because our cushion sizes are designed for little ones to be able to manipulate themselves. A newly potty-trained sibling uses it as a coach because the parents know that the covers are washable and there is waterproof liner underneath to protect the foam (unlike the family sofa). A single sheet fits on top to make an impromptu sleepover bed. During long winter months, kids have an indoor activity that keeps them active, creative and off the screens. As they grow older they still play it regularly, but play differently. There are so many toys that keep kids’ attention for a short time- a month later the toy is collecting dust in a toy chest. A play couch is the rare exception that gets used all the time by the whole family! Even the adults have fun- we never outgrow building forts!

What is the best part about what you do? What is the worst part?

At Barumba Play, play is literally work. I have to make new content all the time and so I seriously get to play with foam and it counts as work. We also LOVE when customers send us photos of their creations and know we are playing a part in building happy memories that will last a lifetime.

The worst part… there isn’t a worst part. I am truly having fun wearing all the hats and learning so much about e-commerce and the toy industry.

What is your favourite joke about your own profession?

This would have been easier to answer if I was still an accountant! Why can’t toys from paper move? Because they’re stationary!

What are your social media channels?

Instagram | Tiktok | Facebook | Pinterest | Linkedin

PAY IT FORWARD: What is another business that you love?

Our friends at August Kinn are a local kids and baby store located on the Danforth that curate a beautiful selection of quality items for babies, toddlers and moms.

The post Homegrown Business: Barumba Play by Sara Feldstein, Founder and toy creator appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

The LEGO line of toys is, of course, near the top of the list, and if you had to pick one LEGO figure to represent the pinnacle of Ole Kirk Christiansen’s 1932 invention, there are plenty of creations that would fit the bill, including any of its ubiquitous Star Wars crossovers from over the years. Still, barely a few weeks into its existence, I’d argue we have a new candidate for Greatest LEGO (and therefore Top 10 Toy) of All Time: LEGO Optimus Prime. A toy mashup so ingenious in concept and so brilliant in conception that, years from now, we will still be talking about it.

The LEGO Optimus Prime is here. It is everything you dorks could have hoped for.

LEGO Optimus Prime transforms. That’s really all you need to know about it. It can stand like a robot-dude, or it can fold down to look like a big ole semi truck. You can swap back and forth with ease.

To be clear about this: Optimus transforms. As in, you bend and contort him on his little LEGO hinges, and he switches from one mode to the other. You do not remove any LEGO bricks to make this happen. You do not have to take him apart and rebuild him, as you would in those (still awesome) 3-in-1 sets. Optimus works exactly like any other Transformer, except he’s built entirely out of LEGO.

In a way, this is almost disturbing. The fact that LEGO now knows how to do this raises all sorts of questions, such as: why bother with regular LEGO ever again? Will we soon be getting a LEGO Boba Fett who transforms into LEGO Slave I? Will the traditional LEGO firefighter set make way for a LEGO firefighter that inverts to reveal a LEGO cat stuck in a tree? These questions remain uneasily unanswered for now, though stay tuned to Toronto Guardian for the inevitable LEGO Transformer Batman/Batmobile.

Sticking to Prime, it’s a beast of a figure. Standing 13.5″ (34 cm) tall in robot mode, it’s a towering addition to any toy collection or respectably decorated bookshelf.

Putting Prime together takes time (hey that rhymes!). Like all modern LEGO builds, pieces come prepackaged in numbered sections: Bag “1” contains all the parts for the truck cab, Bag “2” is for the left leg, and so on. It’s a smart packaging choice LEGO adopted years ago as sets got more and more complex, starting right around the first LEGO Star Wars toy in 1999. (It was an X-Wing. It was also awesome.)

While the resulting robot-truck-dude is the most exciting part, any LEGO set is really a two-part experience: building, then admiring.

There’s always been something half-meditative, half-stressful about assembling the more sophisticated LEGO sets. It’s a nice way to focus the mind and drown out outside distractions but, if you’re anything like me, it’s also a nice way to repeatedly panic yourself when you become convinced you’ve lost one of its 1,500+ pieces.

Putting Optimus Prime together is immensely satisfying. It’s neat seeing how the internal structure of a transforming LEGO set works, especially when you start to realize how certain pieces – this hinge here, that socket there – are going to connect to the overall build. Often you might find yourself wondering why, exactly, a certain piece goes a certain way, only to have that “aha!” moment when you see why it’s necessary.

Seriously, though – make sure you have a big enough build surface so that when you do inevitably drop something, it doesn’t vanish under the floorboards.

As for the transforming, it’s, well, all rather mind-boggling. Joseph Kyde, the genius designer who came up with LEGO Optimus Prime, has done an astounding job of leveraging existing LEGO pieces to build something altogether new. A longtime member of the Transformers fan community, Kyde is one of those lucky souls so good at his fandom that he was hired to work on the real thing. (See also: all the modders invited to make Sega’s Sonic Mania.) I’d hesitate to call transforming easy – much like a high-end Transformer, it requires careful manipulation of a number of moving parts – but boy does it ever work. Just look at the photos accompanying this article. If I hadn’t sworn it true, would you believe I didn’t need to detach a single LEGO brick in order to transition between robot and truck modes? Credit also to the nerds at LEGO for ensuring this Prime comes with both the cartoon-accurate yellow truck bumper and the “Generation 1” toy-accurate grey bumper, which you can swap between at leisure. (For my money, the yellow bumper looks better.)

As always with these complex LEGO builds, there are some minor annoyances. The LEGO step-by-step instruction guides are nigh-impeccable, but occasionally you’ll need to stop, stare, and rotate until you decipher a particularly inscrutable direction. Also, I don’t know if this counts as a LEGO critique, but spend too long building something like this and I do start to get awfully stressed. Until Prime was finished, I kept convincing myself that I was going to somehow miss something, that I’d be forced to take it all apart once I realized my error at the very end. Unless you’re a LEGO pro, expect a moderate amount of sweat to fall from your brow during the course of your Prime build.

Honestly, though, the reward greatly outweighs the minor amount of stress that a LEGO project of this complexity necessarily entails. Building LEGO Optimus Prime is fun. Staring at LEGO Optimus Prime on your shelf is fun. Transforming LEGO Optimus Prime from robot mode to truck mode and making whoosh-whoosh-whoosh sounds to yourself while you do it? Priceless.

*
Final score: 10/10.

For more on LEGO Optimus Prime, visit the official LEGO store here.

The post LEGO Optimus Prime (Toy) Review: Let’s GO! Roll Out! appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

What is your business called and what does it do?

Ode to Toy is a new eco-friendly small business that sells pre-loved and new toys, children’s books and sporting gear for up to 70% off of retail prices! All items are sanitized, cleaned, and ready for your kids to love. Nothing is over $100. We reuse all packaging, try to deliver on foot/by bike, and deliver for free for a $60 minimum. Ode to Toy is anti-racist, anti-xenophobic, anti-hate, and feminist. We are pro-love; and LGBTQ, multi-culturalism and pluralist friendly. We are building our children’s book library to reflect all of these values.

What made you want to do this work? What problem did you want to solve with the business?

For your wallet. For the environment. For their joy. I’ll explain a bit further.

When I had my beautiful baby girl in 2019, I quickly became overwhelmed by toys and books.

· They were so expensive! Sure, I could scour Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace for deals, but let’s be real, who has time for that as a new parent? And to go all the way to pick up, and get there, and learn the quality wasn’t what I wanted?

· They were so terrible for the environment! I sucked it up and bought some stuff. They came in packaging. Wrapped in packaging. In another layer of packaging. Urgh.

· They were quickly discarded! Does my daughter have the attention span of a flea? Yes. Is that developmentally appropriate at this point? Also yes.

· The stores throw out returns! Did you know that many big box stores throw out returned toys? What a waste – perfectly good toys, often in NEW condition, going to the landfill!

So here I was, stuck with a bunch of costly, environmentally burdensome toys that were played with for a few minutes (ok months). I could sell them once she tired of them, but again, new parent – who has time for that? I prefer to use my “spare” time sleeping and eating.

I knew I wasn’t the only one with these issues.

What if I could give these toys a second life? What if I could ensure that you’re not mortgaging your firstborn for Magformers? What if I could assure you that the quality is there: puzzles have all their pieces, games are complete, and dolls have all of their limbs. What if you could get your toys dropped off directly? What if you could sell with almost no effort on your part – picked up from you (for free!) when your little has outgrown their current interests. What if we could save BRAND NEW items that were about to be trashed from a landfill?

Well, that’s exactly what Ode to Toy is going to do. We will bring your little ones joy, as all toys and books do (well, at least temporarily). But we’re also going to bring YOU joy. You’ll save your hard-earned cash (nothing is over $99.99), do our part for the environment, and get that old stuff out of your house quickly and easily.

We will all play it forward.

Who are your clientele/demographics?

Parents with kids, grandparents, people giving gifts…everyone.

How does your business make money? How does it work?

It’s a retail site.

Where in the city can we find your profession?

We are an online-only store, but we deliver in the GTA for free with a $60 purchase. You can also pick up at St Clair & Oakwood.

What is the best question a prospective customer could ask a member of your profession when comparing services? Give the answer as well.

Why would I buy from your business when I could buy on Kijiji or Craigslist?

We sanitize your item, guarantee their completeness, and guarantee their quality. We also deliver with a $60 purchase, so there’s no more leaving your house to see an item that’s not quite as described and leaving empty-handed. Plus, our prices are comparable!

What is the best part about what you do? What is the worst part?

I get to make kids happy, and because the kids are happy, I get to make their parents happy too. There’s no real worst part, though lying awake at night dreaming about how to scale the business is a challenge.

What is your favourite joke about your own profession?

Every Friday I list a “kids joke” on my Instagram, vaguely related to toys. It’s called “Funny Fridays” – here’s a good one.

What kids of balls don’t bounce?

Eyeballs.

Womp, womp.

PAY IT FORWARD: What is another local business that you love?

Little Rebels Music

The post Homegrown Business: Stacey Greenberg, owner of Ode to Toy appeared first on Toronto Guardian.