Jun
07
2011

posted by

Julie Gambino

BBBBB — B. and Baby Buggy Bedtime Bash!

The thought of recycling baby gear to help families in need made our hearts parum pum pum, that's why we were delighted to sponsor an event as powerful as Jessica Seinfeld’s Baby Buggy Bedtime Bash in New York City's Central Park on June 1st. Jessica founded Baby Buggy 10 years ago with the motto “Love. Recycled.” Hold that thought in your heart for a moment. Feels great, doesn’t it? With that loving motto Baby Buggy has donated over 4.1 million items ranging from cribs to onesies to families in need.

With a few months to prepare, our team got together and made lists of all things necessary to create a land of B. in Central Park. We designed cute B. t-shirts, ultra-colorful B. tattoos, made B. patterned pyramids and carefully selected inflatable kiddy pools that we filled with 500 Fish & Splish fishies inside. As families began to swarm into Victorian Gardens (in the sweltering 86 degree 90% humidity heat might I add), children came straight to the swimming pools to play a game of catch, get tattooed…and dip their little hands in the cool water. To see the look in their eyes when they caught their own fishy was wonderful—they were so proud to be certified fisher-kids! Even celebrity guests joined in the fun, because their little ones could not stay away from B. (or our water in that heat!)

While a group of kids were huddled around us yelling, "I want a tattoo! I want a tattoo!" a little one in the background said, "I want a ta-three!". That one's going in our quote gallery :)

We lined up a great wall of You Hues, 700 of them, in a path that led visitors out the exit of Wollman Rink park. Kids walked away with You Hues over their heads, moms balancing them on their strollers and dads juggling a child in one hand and a You Hue in the other.

Besides watching children have a B. fishy, B. splishy good time, it was most important for us to continue the love-chain. B. loves giving back. We donate a dime of every toy purchased to Free The Children, our chief Toy Maker Gisela has hand-delivered toys to children in Kenya. Like Jessica’s motto, ours “Do what you love and do good” drives what we do and the karmic satisfaction of knowing we are making a difference.

While we ensure all our packaging is recyclable, we whole-heartedly encourage all toys to be recycled the old fashioned way—by passing them on to another little one. That's why we love Baby Buggy and their mission to help families by providing gently used essentials that facilitate the lives of hard-working parents who sometimes can't make ends meet. There are many places in your community that collect baby essentials, why not send your gently used items over to your community centers? Your heart will parum pum pum too.

—Julie

PS: We have a lot of photos to share of the fun and folly: check out our Facebook album!

Jun
02
2011

posted by

Gisela Voss

WOW did that really just happen?

We celebrated B.’s first birthday yesterday. Like our babies’ first years it flew by, filled with giggles and milestones.

When we decided to give our fans and followers a gift for our B.irthday, we could have never ever imagined what happened.

At midnight last night, on the first anniversary of our website launch, we were testing the Facebook tab for the giving away of 10,000 onesies to our then 2500 Facebook friends. We wanted to make double triple sure nothing would go wrong the next day.

We had taken a poll on our team of how long it would take us to give our gift away, and you can see below that our closest guess did not imagine the speed with which the web moved—in the middle of the night. As Amy and I watched, riveted to our screens, jaws on the floor, hearts racing, the onesies disappeared before 6 o’clock in the morning! We did not sleep, watching it happen to the very end, dodging questions, trouble-shooting address glitches, spinning, worrying about those of you sleeping who would not be able to participate as we could not control or slow the wildfire.

Having 15,000 new LIKEs overnight had us reeling. While we loved our B.irthday celebration and meeting so many new friends, we are sad that not everyone was able to get a onesie. We really thought we'd be giving them out for weeks.

We love the community that has grown around B. We answer every post and comment personally. We coo at every photo calling each other at night to say “did you see those cheeks?”, “that expression?”, “did you hear that band?”.

Because we know deep in our hearts it takes a village to raise a child, and we are honored to be part of that village.

We promise we won’t lose that personal touch, because it is there that we find the joy in what we do.

B. loved.

Hugs,
Gisela

Jun
01
2011

posted by

Gisela Voss

A Onesie for Yousie to celebrate our Birthday.

Our 1st birthday. It's truly something to celebrate.

Anyone who is a mother, father, aunt, uncle, grammy, grampa, caregiver or special friend to a child knows that the first birthday is special. So many milestones behind. So many adventures ahead. Every time one of you have shared this moment with us, or even invited us into this very special celebration, we've been beyond honored. And now it's our turn.

B. is turning one! It was a year of discoveries. Of firsts. Of exciting events and even lessons learned. We made new friends and discovered a community of families ready to love us. To nurture us. And to celebrate our many milestones right along with us.

Our toys actually hit the Target shelves 16 months ago, but it was one year ago that our website launched, that friends like you started sharing your children's brilliance in our Quote Gallery, that our oh, so loving Facebook community started to grow and embrace us like we lived right next door. You practically brought us a Bundt! This is why we celebrate our first birthday in June. With you. Because without you, we'd be like a toy without a child to play with it. Meaningless.

We wish we could give each and every one of you a great big hug and a piece of cake, but until we can, we are giving each and every one of you (up to the first 10,000) a really cute, little tiny onesie. It's size 12 – 18 months, to be exact. (Just right for anyone turning one right along with us.) It's made of quality unbleached cotton and bears the message we want to give to all children: B. you!

How do you get your onesie? It's so simple. Just go to our Facebook page, LIKE us and give us your name and address. We'll get your onesie to you in just a few weeks. No shipping. No handling. (What is handling anyway?)

It's our gift to you. With all our love and gratitude.

Happy Birthday. To YOU!

—The B. team

May
05
2011

posted by

Gisela Voss

Mamas to Mamas

What do you want for Mother’s Day? Some peace and quiet? Flowers? Handmade cards? A new vacuum cleaner? Breakfast in bed? (I once got ALL my favorites combined onto one English muffin: cream cheese, strawberry jam, and tomato with salt and pepper — yuck! Ehem…I mean YUM, of course!).

We at B. wish all moms, grandmas, aunts, caregivers, and all who mother whatever it is THEY wish for on this special day.

But we also dare wish for something much much bigger—a more fair world, one in which all mamas get a chance to raise healthy kids…and wish a little for themselves too. We have big, medium and little ways you can help another mom far away. Today.

BIG
Buy her a Mamas to Mamas goat, beehive, or training program that could completely alter the course of her life and her dreams. Baa Baa or beehive does not matter. This is a true direct gift. 100%.

MEDIUM
Support her handicraft alternative income effort by buying yourself or someone you love a gorgeous, individually (and ethically) handcrafted gift from Me to We Artisans. Free The Children’s Adopt A Village sustainability model helps not just children overseas go to school and have access to clean water and health care. It also helps their mothers bring about change for their family and community through alternative income projects. With the hard work of mothers, whole families are empowered and lifted from the cycle of poverty. Me to We gives 50% of its net profits to Free The Children. The other half is reinvested to grow the enterprise with the goal of Free The Children someday having an overhead of zero. So much power in a bracelet or necklace!

SMALL
Buy a B. toy for the little person who made you or someone you love a mother in the first place. Bring some joy to a child, knowing 10 cents of your purchase goes to support the work of Free The Children, the world’s largest network of children helping children. May not sound like a lot, but as dimes add up they change the world. See for yourself how powerful you can B. in even the smallest of ways. Asante Sana (“thank you very much” in Swahili).

Little by little, the same way our babies grow, generosity can change everything. A gift from a mama to a mama, a mom to a mami, an abuela to an oma. A daddy to a mommy. No matter. Every little bit counts. We thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for what you already give by buying our toys.

Warmest wishes come true for you.
—Gisela

Jan
25
2011

posted by

Gisela Voss

S.O.S Save our stuff!

Our little ones are watching us every second. We are parents too (loooong before we’re toy makers). We know full-well that what our kids want to play with is OUR stuff!

Those cellphones and Blackberries and iPhones and iPods that are now permanently attached to every parent’s hand or back pocket are an endless source of fascination. Our product development had a wallop of self-preservation motivation when we created Hellophone, FunKeys and, most recently, Alphaberry. We wanted wee ones to have their very own. And, admittedly, leave ours alone. :)

We just knew that any cute character phone or toy-like version of the ‘real thing’ would not do. Kids are much smarter than that. You’ll notice Hellophone, Funkeys and Alphaberry are as close to the real thing without...well, without being the real thing and costing a fortune. (And, of course, our toys have to pass a gazillion safety tests to be in the hands of our most precious ones.)

We firmly believe that God is in the details (the Devil too depending on how you handle the details)... so we put very grown-up features into these toys:

Hellophone calls you back! Truly. Put it down after playing with it, and in about a minute it rings! Children’s faces of surprise delight us every time we witness this. The record-a-voice feature lets you include your very own voice in the phone so that a baby or toddler really thinks he’s got a message from someone he knows. Someone she loves.

FunKeys are metal (safely rounded stainless steel). How many of us have given our babies our own real car and house keys to jingle? We spent months figuring out stainless steel and making sure that even corrosive saliva would not rust these babies, so that OUR babies would have their very own.

Alphaberry took 2 years to make because we wanted the letters on the screen to not be the typical ‘calculator’ letters which no child would recognize. (It takes many many more pixels to create a toddler-recognizable letter A on a screen.) We could have just played the typical alphabet song that most toys on the market play, but that would not be B.! We recorded our own versions of the ABCs in rock&roll, blues, and country—plus we hired a little girl to sing it for us so that our sounds would be “live.” And at the risk of sounding like a Ginzu knife commercial...“that’s not all!”...we programmed the letters to follow the tempo of the music. Of course A-B-C should be slower than LMNOP; any 4 year old could tell you that.

While we were making toys just like moms’ and dads’ we thought of moms and dads every step of the way. All of these are packaged in our patent-pending reversible gift boxes so that in a flip-over minute you are gift-wrap ready for the party!

A remote control next?

—Gisela