About Us
Little Bud Kids is a small family-run business whose mission is to bridge the gap between quality eco-friendly learning toys and accessibility.
We are based in the beautiful & bustling San Francisco Bay Area in California. In this busy world filled with things, we are firm believers in the motto to buy less, buy smarter. To achieve this, our goal is to create fun educational toys that grow with your child. We want our toys to boast a lifespan that goes beyond one short learning stage and does not have to get tossed after being used by one child.
It is our hope that our versatile reading & math toys provide just the right amount of fun challenge for young children. And in appreciation for this beautiful world we live in, we wish that you too will find the value in investing in toys that are natural, eco-friendly, and durable enough to last through the hands of many exploring children.
Thanks for stopping by and we hope that our learning toys can play a role in inspiring the little boy or girl in your life to fall in love with learning.
Our Designs
A note from our founder.
The beginnings of Little Bud Kids started brewing back at the end of 2019. As a mother of two small children, I often wanted to get quality, non-plastic learning toys for my kids, but felt impeded by the costs of these toys. Furthermore, it seemed that many of these "quality toys" worked on just one skill at a time. While there is value in this, my pocketbook felt otherwise and unfortunately purchasing a toy for each stage of development was beyond our family's reach.
I launched Little Bud Kids in the middle of 2020 with the goal of addressing this quandary. When I bring my toy designs to life I strive to ensure that each toy is multi-faceted, versatile, and packed with learning and playing potential. And as someone who cares deeply about the environment, I believe that if we slowly decrease our plastic-use and go back to the timeless beauty of naturally-produced toys, then that's a win for not just Mother Earth, but for our children and their future as well.
For me, our brand name "Little Bud Kids" encapsulates the idea of mindfully choosing to invest in things, not just buy them. Our kids are like little flower buds, small and still finding their place in this world, and yet so full of potential and wonder. Even though our reading and math toys are by no means earth-shattering, I do hope that they will nonetheless be a source of encouragement and empowerment to the kids in your life.
Thank you for coming along this journey with me.
~ Emilia
About Our Toys
Our wooden toys are created from wood from sustainably-managed forests in Germany and New Zealand. We also repurpose wood from the rubber tree in Thailand; once these trees no longer produce latex they are artfully repurposed to be used into other goods.
All of our toys are safe and non-toxic. We only use water-based clear finishes and paints and our toys go through stringent third-party lab testing by TÜV SÜD, a German-based monitory laboratory company. We are beyond compliant for toy safety standards in the US, Canada, EU, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. This includes ASTM F963, UK EN-71, EN-71, SOR 2011-17 & 18, AUS/NZ ISO 8124, and JFSL Regulations.
We only work with woodworkers who have received third-party international verification of meeting and exceeding ethical work standards & toy safety standards. Our woodworkers work in compliance with the BSCI code of conduct, which is a standardized European approach for monitoring social standards.
And last, but not least, all our toys are both kid and parent-tested and approved prior to production. We pride ourselves in bringing smiles not just for kids, but for the adults in their lives as well.
Giving Back
Our heart for refugees started back many years ago when our founder began volunteering for an NGO serving refugees. Her experience as a tutor and advocate for a Burmese family of 3 girls, who had finally made it to the US after 10 years in a refugee camp in Thailand, influenced her greatly. She was able to experience first-hand the diverse needs of the refugee community.
The needs of refugees are vast, but the hope they hold for the future is even greater. To continue supporting the work of refugee agencies abroad, a portion of the proceeds from every purchase of our toys goes towards educating a refugee child.
Click HERE for more details for how we support the refugee community in Malaysia.
FAQs
Our learning toys could very well be made with plastic. But the money we will be saving you and ourselves to do this will come back to haunt us in the future.
Plastic does not biodegrade; it can only photodegrade, and that alone can take hundreds of years. This is just one of the reasons why we choose natural materials for our toys. We source from sustainable forests or use repurposed wood.
Our wood toys celebrate our earth and each set is unique, beautiful, and durable.
We love to work with wholesalers, stockists, and distributors. If you would like to carry our toys, please send us an email to partners@littlebudkids.com with further information about your business.
We absolutely sell to schools! We offer bulk discounts for schools and can ship anything from master cases to pallets of our toys. See HERE for more information or reach out to us for more information!
We love partnering with affiliates! It is a win-win for all and we love the community it builds. If you are interested in becoming our Brand Ambassador please check out our affiliate page HERE.
We stand behind the quality of our toys. If you receive a toy that has a defect or misassembly we will make it right for you. Please send us a message on our CONTACT PAGE with more information of your issue and we will be happy to get that sorted out.
We ship worldwide*! While we are based in the USA, we also actively sell directly and ship from within the UK, Canada, and Australia as well. Outside of these countries we are able to ship DDP, which is lingo for saying you will know your customs & duties charges prior to purchase and will not have any surprise charges when the parcel arrives to you.
*While we do ship worldwide, we are unable to ship to countries that are currently on the USA embargo list. For more information visit our shipping page HERE.