Kelly Kaatz 

Beth Anne Piehl, Special Sections Writer

As a stay-at-home with two little ones, Kelly Kaatz is always looking for new ways to keep her kids entertained. Lucky for her kids that mommy is a painter, seamstress, inventor and overall artist by nature, with the market on imagination cornered.

Her latest kid’s toy-turned-entrepreneurial endeavor are creative, one-of-a-kind playmats, hand-sewn and decorated with her artist’s eye for detail – and her knowledge, simply, of what is fun for children.

“The possibilities are endless,” said Kaatz, 28, with youthful enthusiasm herself as she pulls out two of her playmats to talk about their designs.

A funny thing happens when she unfolds the soft, large squares of fleece and fun: Her 2-year-old Emma and 9-month-old Andrew gravitate to them like they’re made of sugar. They spend the duration of their mom’s interview arranging and rearranging the pieces, stacking them and for Andrew, chewing on them, too.

(It makes another mom of youngsters want to desperately take one home. Today.)

As she’s launching her business and Web presence, Creative Playmats, she’s creating various themed versions that will lure in even more children than her own. One mat she has on display is a water and island adventure, where fleece patterns are cut by Kaatz and sewn into land, island and water areas.

Each playmat also comes with about five formed-foam pieces, each about the size of a bag of flour, such as in this instance a boat, a tree, mountain, bridges and rocks. Kaatz handpaints the designs and images on the play pieces as well, like the bark on the trunk of the tree, and each has secret nooks and crannies for kids’ imaginations to flourish further.

She’s currently creating a custom-ordered construction zone with bridges, roadways and dirt piles, and has plans for a pirate adventure, dinosaur landscape, jungle, farmland and more. The goal is to create settings where kids can move the foam pieces around and rearrange the colorful mats innumerable times; plus children can use the plenty of toys they already own – Little People, Hotwheels, farm animals, etc. — on the mats as well.

“It’s all about creativity, it’s a creative outlet for them,” she said. “It’s a toy for kids who have all the toys.”
When it comes to her own children and their playtime, Kaatz finds it important that they have quiet time to use their imaginations; the playmats allow kids to do just that. “You don’t tell the kid what to think or how to play with it,” she said. “It encourages a child’s own creative energies. There are no rules.”

She’s a stitch

An artist by genetics more than training, Kaatz has an impressive portfolio of paintings, sketches and ideas. She began making hand-painted playmats for her kids and others several years ago, and thought about starting a Web site to sell them.

“I’ve been making them for years as a quick gift for the kids who have everything,” Kaatz said.

Recently, she changed direction and ventured into sewing the mats to improve their durability. It’s that innate ability toward arts and crafts that has been part of her life since she was herself a child. Her parents didn’t let her watch much TV, she said, so instead, she started painting and drawing, and discovered her preferred medium to be oil on stretched canvas.

Her first oil painting, an abstract, sold from a school art show when she was just 18, and she went on to paint murals and display her work at times at different locales. She also enjoys painting portraits, and has done a number of them on commission.

Sewing has also been a hobby, and “now that I have kids, this is more functional for me.” It’s also a wind-down activity she can pursue when her own kids are asleep.

“It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, and I want to provide joy for other kids,” Kaatz said, adding, “and if they possibly give moms some free time to let their kids play and not have to hear a video in the background or the TV, that’s a good thing, too.”

Putting the pieces together:

Who: Kelly Kaatz, 28, of Petoskey (maiden name, Wade)
Family: Married to Karl Kaatz, two children, Emma, 2, and Andrew, 9 mo.
More talent in her pinky finger ... An artist and painter by nature, Kaatz has created 5- by 5-foot custom playmats for children ages 3 and up. Each is mostly hand- and partially machine-sewn, and comes with three to five foam, custom, movable play pieces. The mats are made from non-fraying fleece and fleece-like materials with a polyester backing, making them highly durable.
That’s the spirit: The entrepreneur mom has launched Creative Playmats on the Web, and is taking custom orders for holiday gifts. Each exclusive mat costs $250.
Web address: www.creativeplaymats.synthasite.com
Where to see them locally: Kaatz’s playmats will be on display at the children’s clothing and accessory store, The Circus Shop, downtown Petoskey, for a week beginning Oct. 31.