Our Story

Learn more about the toucanBox journey and how we made a kids craft box that’s jam packed with educational fun that inspires quality time.

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes and having fun.”
Mary Lou Cook

Think about your best memories as a child. What were you doing?
Building a fort? Cooking with grandma?

30 years later, I still remember making a force meter out of rubber bands and paperclips with my dad one rainy Sunday.

Virginie

In 2012 I founded toucanBox, a kids craft subscription box with a simple objective; deliver quality time and educational fun, that gives kids lasting memories like my own.
I assembled a team and we started sending out our craft boxes to kids up and down the country.

Adelle

In 2017 I spotted Adelle on Dragon’s Den pitching her business BKD. She had just gained investment from Peter Jones to launch her baking and craft subscription, Mini Baker’s Club. Adelle shared my vision of “less screen time, more quality time” and was immensely passionate about product and design.

Virginie-Adelle

We joined forces in 2018.
Since then we’ve grown our business, received numerous awards, donated over 10,000 toucanBoxes to disadvantaged children, and made our way through 4,787,124 googly eyes (no, really, we checked)!

It was -and continues to be- hard work. But it’s hard work we love.

This is our story, now start yours.

Our mission

Our mission is simple, “Unleash creativity one box at a time”! But we also have a couple of other guiding principles...

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Convenient

toucanBox is delivered through your letterbox every month. All the materials you need are inside. Because hassle free is fun!
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Eco-conscious

We want the children who enjoy toucanBox to grow up in a beautiful world. So we print with vegetable inks on FSC approved paper, package crafts in recyclable boxes and craft bags, plus cut plastic components wherever possible.
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Affordable

Quality time is priceless so we’ll always make sure it’s affordable. We keep our subscription low-cost and high quality. Easy to pause and easy to cancel. We also offer prepaid plans with super savings.
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Compassionate

We believe every child has the right to play. Our charitable donations and Care For Kids initiative help us in our mission to craft a more compassionate world.

Our products

Crafting is all about concentration, trialling and testing until you achieve your goal. Studies show that 4-year olds who are able to concentrate for longer periods of time and persist with a task are more likely to be successful later on in life.

We design our crafts to support cognitive and language development, fine motor skills and mental wellbeing. Our expert designers dedicate 3-6 months to develop each new craft and every one is tested by kids to ensure it challenges, educates and engages them.

When we first sit down to create a craft we start with just one question: what’s fun for kids? If the craft is fun for the child then they will concentrate, investigate, experiment and problem solve. The learning happens naturally when a child is having fun.

WHAT IS STEAM?

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Science

Our crafts encourage children to observe, experiment, and hypothesize in order to understand the world around them, just like all great scientists do!

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Technology

Understanding technology is an essential skill for the future. Our boxes help kids to identify sequences, as well as following and creating instructions.

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Engineering

Engineers are experts at creating, constructing, and testing. toucanBox crafts refine children’s fine motor and assembly skills to encourage their inner engineer!

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Art

Decorating and designing crafts unleashes imagination and challenges kids to get creative in original and exciting ways.

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Maths

Exploring shapes, numeracy and measuring through practical projects like crafting gives a fun, real-world application of mathematics.

Dot, TB1, Kit, Mati and Al are the STEAM Team. They guide kids through creative challenges in the toucanBox magazine and craft instructions.

Our community

We love our amazing community of little crafters. Seeing them with their tongues stuck out in concentration, beaming toothy grins of triumph, or squealing with excitement when their personalised toucanBox pops through the letterbox, is the best thing about our job.

Happy Customers
Happy Customers
Happy Customers

We think our kids craft box is amazing, but of course we’d say that. Luckily, you don’t just need to take our word for it...

Oh, and let’s not forget these...

Awards

  • Made for Mums Gold Award
  • Family Awards Silver
  • Family Awards Bronze
  • Independent Best Buy 2021
  • Arts Council
  • Arts Award
  • Academics' Choice Award Winner

Our team

Our team is small but mighty!


team photo
team photo
team photo

We work between our Central London office and our fun factory in Hounslow. Each member of the toucanBox Team cares passionately about our mission statement and upholds our key values…

Our values

CREATIVE

  • We embrace change and encourage originality.
  • We challenge assumptions and propose better options.

LOVE TO LEARN

  • We try new things and develop new skills.
  • We share knowledge and help each other to grow.

WE GET IT DONE

  • We are reliable and effective.
  • Colleagues can trust one another to get the job done to a high standard.

GENUINE

  • We are honest but respectful.
  • We say what we truly think will be helpful to the individual and business.

REALISTICALLY POSITIVE

  • We are ambitious but reasonable when setting goals and challenges.
  • We celebrate what we achieve.

PASSIONATE

  • We are invested in our mission statement and appreciate the impact our work can have.

Think you fit this description? Be part of our story...

Any questions? Get in touch with our lovely customer care team at [email protected].