How I grew my toy brand through blogging

My name is Mathilde Fabry, and I’m a French plush toy designer and maker. My business is Petit Loulou. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been creative. As a kid, I would pick up wood and cardboard to build houses for my toys, and even created a lift so they could go ski. I’ve also always loved to draw. All my notebooks were filled with drawings. After graduating high school, I decided to learn animation and started my career as a character animator on many TV shows and movies such as Despicable Me, Hotel Transylvania, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. 

In my spare time, I taught myself needle felting, and I started to see some interest from my colleagues. At the same time, getting pregnant got me thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. I knew for sure I wanted to be present for my son, and that would mean a change of career, so I decided to use my creativity and turn it into a business. I taught myself how to sew and started to design plushies and accessories. My inspiration came from my son and my years in animation. During my design process, I would always ask myself if my son would like it and would it be useful? My little man is actually my quality-control expert! I keep working on prototypes until he doesn’t want to give the toy back to me. And only then do I start the production process. The highest validation is when the new plushie becomes part of his sleeping gang.

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