A start-up ‘work out’
When you think of baby play gyms, you would usually imagine the mass-produced plastic ones with toys hanging off them and various buttons that play noises and music (which is enough to drive parents a little nuts after a while!).
Then, when it comes to measuring how much little ones are growing every month, it usually falls between purchasing some kind of themed measuring chart that sticks on the wall, or taking a pencil and making markings on a door frame…
A new spin
Sara Pearson, Bold Kids, had an idea to take these popular concepts and give them a personal, chic and trendy touch. Cutshop was there to help turn them into a reality. A spectacular outcome didn’t come straight away. Sara went through several prototypes to get to the final product they ended up using.
Additionally, they faced the challenge with not having fastenings for the product, and therefore, had to make something that was a perfect fit and easy to assemble. After close collaboration and some small suggestions from the Cutshop team, challenges were overcome to great success!
“For the play gym we wanted a stylish, modern, safe, durable baby play gym that could be assembled without fastenings and could be packed away easily while not in use. And of course, something that looks great in your home!”
The outcome has been very well received, and Sara was very complimentary of Cutshop’s input.
“The team was willing to work with our difficult requirements, and were the only manufacturers that would offer us a finished product (with radiused edges) without us having to go to more than one manufacturer.
They were great in helping us work through the process, guiding us on the capabilities of the CNC machines and giving guidance to our designer to get the finished product right.
Always super easy to work with and accommodating us with squeezing in extra cuts when we needed more stock.
We couldn’t be happier with the finished product, they are very professional and cleanly cut.”
Taking vision to new heights
Next up … the height charts! Her vision being precise, Sara told the Cutshop team;
‘We would like to create a simple, modern ruler for families to track their child’s height. Something modern, sleek and durable to display proudly in your home while creating a family timepiece that will be treasured for years to come.’
This kind of clean, simple and visionary design was a delight to the team’s ears, and they enjoyed the process of helping Sara’s idea develop into a tangible product. The design itself seems straightforward from afar, however, up close, the work involved to make it so smooth required lots of routering in order to get the ruler effect with ruler markers and numbers. Fine attention to detail was needed throughout the whole journey.
“It was definitely a process, for the rulers, we did some tests on MDF to get the numbers and ruler markers to the look that we wanted.
Manufacturing your own products can be quite difficult, but Cutshop did make the whole thing a lot easier and I’m glad we decided to do our cutting with them - by far the most helpful from the outset.
They were easy to deal with and they had time for us even as a small business starting out. It was so nice to be taken seriously.”
On equal measure with the baby play gyms, Sara was stoked with the finished product and raves about the positive customer response she has received as a result.
“\We have had a lot of great feedback on both products, but our rulers are our best seller! Their simple, sleek, modern appearance has been well received.
Personally, we love the look of the cuts - especially how you can see the plywood grain on the numbers because of the use of the v-cutter tool.”
