StoriesForToys

From humble beginnings as a small pile of random household objects to today's large piles of random household objects, Stories For Toys is a classic story of survival and interior decorating.

Not so long ago I spent the days looking after my toddler daughter while simultaneously keeping my photography business in operation. They were trying times, though the realities of being a drooled-upon stay-at-home dad really freed up time in my social calendar. I also got to play with toys.

One day I was taking stock of the little messes that make up a family home: toys, craft supplies, home renovation scraps, and unknown matter. The random objects included a plastic cow, some teal art paper, wood chunks, and a dollhouse-scale portrait of Martha Washington.

It occurred to me I could create a miniature version of a stock photo I once saw, which featured a cow in India standing inside a teal-colored living room. I set the scene in my studio and thought this was great fun. Soon after that all the plastic animals in the house were being staged in little diorama homes.

Being a photographer, I like to send my pictures out in the world to be sold as prints. Etsy looked fun and provided the perfect home for the animal diorama series. Shortly after the shop went up the internet got interested, and Wild Life Prints began appearing on blogs such as Martha Stewart's, People magazine's, and Apartment Therapy.

Buoyed by this success, I was soon buying plastic animals and dollhouse furniture at a rate previously unknown to middle-aged males—my daughter is the happy owner of toy animals that form a 16 foot-long parade line through the house.

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