Hi folks,

I've been out of the puppet mill for a little while but something interesting has happened that may get the old felt and foam flying again.

At the beginning of December I was invited to be a part of a small toy show/sale at a small, independent toy shop in Toronto.  I brought in some copies of our puppet film It Came from Uranus, some toy photography, and some zombie puppets that I call Zombuddies and they remained in shop for the entire month.  Yesterday I went out to pick up my mercy and the shop owner handed me mad stacks (well, maybe not mad stacks but I made some money, which is always nice after Christmas).  Anyway, she asked me to leave my work in the shop as it wound up becoming rather popular.  Not only that, but the Zombuddies were a particularly hot item and she asked if I could bring her more of them.

So now I have an official retailer handling my work in Toronto.  I thought that was pretty exciting, so I thought I'd share.

Happy new year.

Hey good news!  You just never know where life is going to lead you.   You should post information about the store so if someone is in your neck of the woods they can check it out.

Congrats!

Very exciting for you. Shawn is right, also if they have a website that info. Would be helpful also.

Julie

Congratulations! That's awesome news! I hope the sales continue for you. Do you have any pics of your work in situ?

Thanks folks.  The shop is called Atomic Toybot (http://atomictoybot.com/wordpress/) at 978 Queen E, Toronto.

Cool "toy" store.  No wonder your puppets where a hit. As they always say location is everything and it looks like you have found the right location to showcase your puppets.  Think this is a good tip for others also. The shop is not your ordinary run of the mill store. That means it is going to attract people looking for unique and different things and they are going to be a bit more willing to pay a fair price. As custom puppet builders we can't really compete with generic factory made puppets so we have to find outlets like this.

Again congrats!

Thanks.  Funny little story - the shop owner told me that around Christmas a customer came in and was aghast that they were trying to pass off an item 'Made in China' as a local artist creation.  The shop owner assured her that the puppet was indeed locally crafted, but the customer refused to believe her.  Finally the owner asked why she thought it was made in China and the customer showed her the tag, which clearly read 'Made in China'.  She was looking at the tag for the plunger that was being used for the puppet stand.  Apparently she just turned around and left in a huff. 

That is pretty funny... guess they need to find some plungers that are made locally.

There are surprisingly few local plunger artists in the greater Toronto area.  Perhaps there is a niche for this?  lol