our family

Our eldest Toma, he is eight and a half now but sometimes we feel like he is more our flat mate than our child, he is highly independent, home schooled but won't take much schooling and instead is schooling us on the true meaning of letting go...
Toma is constantly teaching me that children are whole and wise people, they are not be treated as less than that as they know what they need and usually follow their hearts on things if we let them. I am definitely doing my best to protect him from dangers and letting him know my opinion, but he makes most of the calls, and its not an easy task to allow it as a parent.
watching children grow is like putting a seed in the ground that you have no knowledge about, you wait to see what will flower there.
its really such a beautiful and mysterious process.

this is our Aalya, she is six and a half and as you see a cheerful little elf.
she is a constant inspiration as she can't stop making something, she is beading and painting and building and gluing and cutting and sculpting and singing and dancing, she is the muse of the arts...
she reminds me so much of myself as a child and she eve looks like me as a child
its a very strange and fascinating mirror.
sitting at my sewing table she is sure to arrive asking to sew something as well so i find myself developing many ideas with her and learning from her simple free approach to colors and combination.
in the photo she is with her own greenmanshop Olka rabbit and angel wings.

This is our youngest girl Shaya, almost five years old.
being last she is still our baby and oh so sweet.
Toma and Shaya were born in India and they share a certain wild quality that i can't entirely pin point, they are both non conformist and stubborn and find their own special way of doing things.
Shaya and Aalya are best friends and they complete each other in their energy and character.
Shaya has such a sweet tooth that I am obliged to do a certain amount of baking if I don't want her to go around the village begging for candies, so we have a lot of fun in the kitchen together.

When I am creating toys I sometimes wonder what influences my creation more, my own childhood or my children's.

I still have a very strong sense of being a child, I definitely create from this place ,making my dreams come to life for myself , my children, and than seeing this magic spreads out, touching peoples hearts at the same spot.

I take this notion to all fields of creation, In theater in painting, in toy design, always aiming at looking at things from my child point of view, making it meaningful for the child and not to the self aware adult.