Today we’re excited to be connecting with Steve & Dawn Woodburn again. We’re excited to feature one of their products in our gift guide – learn more below and we encourage you to use your gift budget to support small businesses & creatives whenever possible.

Steve & Dawn, we loved learning your story, but I think our audience is going to appreciate learning about the product side of your story as well. So, maybe you can help bring everyone up to speed?
Dawn says Steve blows his nose like a moose and that’s where the inspiration came from! She bought him a plush moose as a gag gift and they’d pose him around the house doing different things and post on Facebook. Several people told us we needed to do something with the idea so, out of the blue, we came up with the idea for a plush Marvelous Moosey. We gave him blue hooves to remind children, and adults, it’s OK to look different. So what if you have freckles, wear glasses, have autism or a different skin color? Those traits are what make each of us unique and marvelous individuals. We wrote the children’s book to tell his story and created his Moosecase® as an interactive package that looks like an old-time suitcase with games inside. It warms our hearts to hear the stories of families that have bought a Moosey and how loved he is. And the pictures…they melt our hearts and remind us, that’s why we created our products and brand.

Do you have any interesting customer success stories you can share about folks for whom your product was a great fit?
We’ve heard so many heart-warming stories from families who’ve purchased a Moosey for their little ones. Many have been purchased for children with autism (their official color is blue) and we’ve been told he is their best friend and they request their parents read his book every night. One child received her Moosey as a baby shower gift and the parents took a picture of the baby and Moosey every month for the first 18 months. That little girl, Octavia, now takes Moosey everywhere with her and calls him Moo Moo. One nine year-old girl purchased a Moosey and brought him back the next day to show us she’d made him a safety vest out of an old T-shirt. She said, “Well, if he’s going to travel, he needs a safety vest.” One girl has a business selling jewelry made from recycled crayons and her booth was next to ours at a festival. She bought one with her own money and we see her regularly with her Moosey at festivals. Then there’s the young man who had his own debit card his parents gave him, using money he earns doing chores, who purchased Moosey because he thinks he’s cool. These stories and many more remind us why we created our brand and how blessed we are to see others embrace the philosophy of spreading kindness and joy in their worlds.

If you had to boil your product or brand down to one core message – what would that message be?
To spread kindness and joy whoever you go. In his book, Moosey was made fun of by the other moose in the first because of his blue hooves. His wise friend, Winston the Owl, told him is blue hooves make him unique and marvelous and said he should leave the forest, make new friends, follow his dreams and spread kindness and joy wherever he goes. The world can be a hard place, but it’s up to each of us to share a smile and make sure we’re staying positive and spreading joy and kindness to others. Don’t let the negative in the world get you down, use it to fuel your dreams and show others what it means to be marvelous. If our work helps spread that message to others, then we believe all of our hard work and efforts have been worth it.

What’s next on the product or brand roadmap?
We’re just finishing illustrating a second book with another marvelous adventure for Moosey with some new friends. And each of those friends will have something that makes them unique and marvelous. There’s Sami the squirrel whose tail is split because of an accident (based on a real squirrel in our backyard we’ve been feeding for the last six years). There’s Roxie the Rabbit who has beautiful long ears, but she doesn’t hear very well. And Emy the frog has long legs, but doesn’t jump very well. We want to continue reinforcing the message that it’s OK to be or look a little different. It’s our uniqueness that makes the world go round because wouldn’t it be a boring place if we all were the same? We have many ideas to continue building out the brand and with time, and money, we’ll do just that!

Image Credits
Steve and Dawn Woodburn