Carefully selected materials, high quality, great attention to details and handmade with love under the Greek sun! What one can wish more for soft and wooden toys?

Hersin means made by hand! Hersin means wonderful designed and manufactured decoration for kid’s room and nice toys made with love in Greece by a very talented couple Niki and Giorgos. If you are searching for cute dolls or animal softies, wooden toys, garlands, mobiles or other handmade treasures, be sure to find them by Hersin!

Eco-friendly and beautiful packaging from Hersin

Today I would like to welcome two wonderful person, Niki and Giorgos, the founders and creators behind Hersin.

Dear Niki, dear Giorgos, please tell us a little bit about you.
We are Niki and Giorgos both 40 years old. We come from Kalamata, Greece. Niki has a PhD in Environmental Science, while Giorgos is a Mechanical Engineer. We lived and studied together in the UK more than 20 years ago. Since 2012 we have returned to our home city. Our five year old Anastasis was the main influence for our journey in the world of toy making, which started in 2016. When we feel creative we like to make things that range from wooden components to electronics. We really enjoy birdwatching whenever we have the chance, as well as long walks in the nature.

Photo credit: @Hersin– Niki and Giorgos

How did you actually get the idea of creating your own company?
Our sincere love for children and quality toys that target them has been our driving force. The need to advance our professional careers, led us to a field that pleases us aesthetically and at the same time gives us the opportunity to develop our scientific and engineering backgrounds.

Which part of handmade process you love most of all?
Crafting children’s toys often refers to happy children’s faces. Therefore, every step of the process represents for us pleasant moments. Materials, colors, designs, finishes, they all take shape with love and every moment reminds us that this product has to be in harmony with the beauty of life, a child’s smile. It is impossible to face a piece of wood or fabric and not think how this could be turned into something wonderful for our little friends.

If you could choose only one, what would be your favourite material?
Wood is a magical product that fascinates us even when it is raw, trying to explore it to its heart in order to find out what you can get from it, what shape to turn it into. It moves us that such a tough material can get such a smooth and soft finish and become a safe toy to a child’s hands.

Which criteria are important by selection of your products?
As parents the quality of our materials cannot be negotiable. It is a priority to use the purest materials such as linen or cotton fabrics, certified and naturally colored, wood to its purest form (we often utilize olive wood pruning, an abundant source of renewable high quality wood in our area) finished with natural beeswax or water based colors and dyes. We even handcraft most of our packaging out of recycled paper. Synoptically we could say that our main criteria are safety and respect to the physical, psychological and mental development of each child.

Could you please describe Hersin in 3 words?
made by hand

Which of your products you don’t want to miss in your own home?
We believe that toys have always been essential for the normal and balanced child development. Ancient Greeks recognized their importance and handcrafted beautiful toys for their children. For us as toymakers, our jeep, which is also a stacking toy, reflects our aesthetics, while it offers beautiful moments to our five year old son.

Thank you so much for this interesting insight and all your love you put into these wonderful handmade toys.

I am sure to see more from you in the future and I keep my fingers crossed for all your plans and wishes for the future.

Sunny greetings from France to Greece,

Arminka aka Petit Sourire

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In collaboration with Hersin