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About the Maker - Grapat
Background
Production
Sustainability
Mandala Snowflakes by Grapat includes 36 pieces of little wooden snowflakes each approx 40mm tall and 19mm in diameter.
Grapat's Mandala collection invites children to create mandalas, individually or in a collective. They can also be used to create pictures and representations. Mandala sets include 36 pieces in order to make round creations. Depending on the needs of the kids, they can enrich symbolic play, they can be used as food for cooking or elements to transport. When the children are older and in the phase of concrete learning, the Mandala pieces can be used for counting, lining up, or creating letters among many other things.
Grapat creations are produced according to traditional manufacturing processes and with locally sourced materials. The wood comes from sustainable forests and has the certification PEFC 14-35-00485
Each piece is stained by hand. Sometimes, by an excess of pigment, single pieces loose some colour when getting in contact with the saliva. This is not a problem as they are absolutely safe and non-toxic. The dyes are water based and non-toxic. They comply with the European safety regulations of the toy in Europe EN / 71-3. The finishes are made with waxes and oils of vegetable origin.
Safety rated for ages 3 years and up.
Made in Spain.
Store in a dry place.
For care & cleaning of Grapat wood products, wipe with a damp cloth and dry immediately. Do not submerge in water and do not use disinfectant or excessively hot water for prolonged period of time.
Exposing to UV sunlight on a medium to high UV day can also work well to sanitize surfaces.
Grapat is known for being smoothly sanded; however, if you find any surfaces or edges to be too rough, you could try the 'brown paper bag trick'. You can use either the rough or fine side of a regular brown paper bag, and sand the area (please look out as from the friction, it can become surprisingly hot very quickly, and you also would like to protect your fingers!). This often works quite well, even for wooden items dyed with colour.
Grapat started to form as an idea after the birth of our first child, Lola. We realised how she didn’t really need any off-the-shelf toys in order to play and would use her ingeniousness to turn everyday objects into whatever she desired. Looking at how happy she was, we realised that being present, observing her needs and offering daily objects to fulfil them, was all that really mattered. After the birth of our second child Tomàs, we moved from the big city to the countryside. In the former home of Jordi’s family, we could integrate the slower way of life we had been longing for. We started to create and play with wood, and slowly but surely, the family home turned into a fully operational workshop. We would create the pieces with machinery installed in the barn where a donkey used to live years before and would stain them by hand with old sheets in kitchen where Jordi’s grandmother used to cook up delicious meals. This is when our dream, our own company, finally materialised. Grapat means “a handful” in Catalan, the native language of our land, and this is exactly where the simple idea behind this humble project came from: to carry a handful of loose pieces with the utmost care in our hands, and offer them with the same love to the hands of children.
Grapat has grown a lot since its birth in 2015, spreading globally over 62 countries and needing more and more production space every year, but it is still – and always will be – a family project. It is the manifestation of our way of life and the vision for the future we believe in, so we care for it as if it were another child in the family. We still create new pieces and prototypes out of clay or beeswax, we still communicate with the world using our own authentic voice and we keep staining our pieces by hand in-house. We ARE Grapat, and things just couldn’t be any different.
We are in a lifelong love affair with Nature, we accept that we lack control over her so we simply observe and respect her. Our creations are an offering to her, not an attempt to modify her laws. Our goal is simplicity itself – when working on a product, we draw inspiration from its true natural form and then try to reduce it to the essential, detaching from the unnecessary and the superfluous, in order to offer material that is truly open, ready to transform into whatever the child needs in every playtime.
Wood is our element. It is warm and alive; it is soft and robust at the same time. Its irregular shapes and incomplete patterns make it unique and truly beautiful to our eyes. Its texture holds a wealth of information and hidden stories waiting to be discovered by the senses of every child. Over time, the wood will acquire subtle dents and scars, and this means that it has accomplished its very aim, providing children with hours and hours of free and open-ended play, and we deeply cherish that. The “imperfectness” of the wood makes each piece unique – just like us humans! Our toys are produced according to traditional manufacturing processes and with proximity sustainable materials sourced within the EU.
Colour has the power to connect with our mood and everything else happening inside of us. This is why our dyes come directly from nature, and reconnect us to her in return. Each piece is stained by hand; working with dyes instead of acrylic paint allows us to keep in contact with the wood and its veins in a kind and noble way. The dye sinks deep into the surface of the wood without covering its beauty and giving an everlasting effect.
The dyes are water based and non-toxic. The colours and their appearance might vary slightly, like nature itself.
The wood we use comes from sustainable forests and holds the certification PEFC 14-35-00485.
The finishes are made with wax and oils of vegetable origin.
Some of our products include cotton bags. All the fabrics have a GOTS Certificate (Global Organic Textile Standard)
All our packaging is 100% plastic free. We also produce the boxes with a heavyweight cardboard that ensures the life of the box for approximately 5 years. We consider our boxes as part of the toy.
Most of our products are in one piece. In spite of this, some elements need the use of glue for their assembly. The glue used is 100% formaldehyde free.
All our products are manufactured and tested in accordance with the safety requirements of the European (EN71 1–2-3), American (ASTM) Toy Safety Standards, and ISO8124.
All of our collaborators and suppliers are of proximity, located in Europe. In this way we can know about the way of working and can ensure fair working conditions.
The pillars of our organisation are self-management, professional development and personal growth.
Social responsibility is part of our way of life, so we collaborate with foundations that take care of people with physical or mental disabilities who help us to develop packaging tasks. We are also active in giving back to society by supporting different charities and humanitarian projects with focus on childhood and families.