The final two weeks of holiday shopping are upon us! That means that if you still have gifts to buy for friends and loved ones, your time is winding down. In order to assist, we’ve reached out to a wide variety of local shops, stores, and boutiques to find out which of their three most popular “must have” items can still be found on their shelves.

Next we have 3 suggestions from Laura Kuenzli, Owner of Rivet, a designer toy and art gallery in the Short North. [Read More]

Last year over a couple mugs of hot chocolate in their Worthington home, a husband and wife decided to make wooden toys for their two young sons and friends with children. The British master carpenter husband and marketing firecracker wife sourced all-natural local wood, designed kid-friendly shapes, and lovingly finished each piece. The buzz surrounding their charming hand-hewn playthings began to spread and they realized they might be onto something. So Amy Turn Sharp and her husband Joe founded Little Alouette, and now they process orders from around the world. [Read More]

Press Release:

LEGO to Open First Store in Central Ohio at Easton Town Center this Summer

Officials at The Georgetown Company and Steiner + Associates, co-developers of Easton Town Center, today announced that the LEGO Group, the makers of the classic brand of children’s building bricks, will open a store within Easton’s North District in late summer 2009. This will be the only LEGO store in Columbus, and one of two in Ohio. [Read More]

Exactly two years ago, Columbus saw the opening of it’s first “Designer Toy and Art Gallery” space as Rivet got started up in the Short North. Tomorrow marks the start of their second anniversary celebration and we sat down with owner and curator Laura Kuenzli to talk about the past, present and future of this one-of-a-kind art gallery and toy shop. [Read More]

The past few years have seen a huge surge in handmade crafts and toys, especially here in Columbus. The rise in people crafting has lead to the birth of shows like Tiny Canary and Craftin’ Outlaws. Tiny Canary was created to support the spirit of the handmade community and to give consumers a chance to purchase a locally made and safe toy instead of mass-marketed toys which have been facing frequent recalls.

All of the recent recalls on toys brought strong action from Congress. On August 14, 2008, President Bush signed into law the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act. This toy safety act was put into place to protect our children younger than twelve against lead and phthalates in toys. It also put into effect things such as: mandating third-party lead testing and certification for all toys and requiring toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number. The law is written so broadly that it also includes the people crafting handmade toys who were originally providing safe alternatives to unsafe toys.  [Read More]