November 22, 2012 is Thanksgiving day in the U.S. Simple for me to find what I am thankful for, because it’s also the birthday of my kids Rose & Daniel. Seven years old now. They showed me a couple of little toys they got this morning, a wolf and a hedgehog or something like it. These wooden toys are among the favorites in our household. The kids dragged out a number of others like them.

age 7

German toys

I had seen a photo in Robin Wood’s book about the “ring” turners who make similar toys in the German town of Seiffen, then I remembered that just the other day Robin posted a link to a youtube piece about how these toys are made. So I am copping it & posting it here in case you missed it. 

 

(here’s his blog link too - http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/2012/11/two-great-woodcraft-films.html )

Then I found another video about Christian Werner’s workshop, the same one Robin visited many years ago, on this blog: http://www.mygrowingtraditions.com/blog/2012/10/christian-werner-ring-animals/

Notice that CNN calls him a “wood-spinner” – but we all know he’s a turner. 

I don’t think our toys are ring-turned, but regardless, for us, these toys are great. Nice that they are wooden, but best feature is that they are just figures that the kids have to apply all the story for…and when you let them, they do. No Disney story line, no action figure, no computer game to go with them. No T-shirt, pillowcase, DVD series, – none of that sort of junk that we find associated with so many toys…

Here’s where some of ours came from. 

Ostheimer animals and people  http://www.bellalunatoys.com/ostheimer-figures.html

Holtztiger animals and people too  http://www.padilly.com/animaltoys.html

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