What do you do when you need a moment to focus? For thousands of people in the US, the answer may lie in a piece of technicolor plastic that, when pressed, produces a soft and satisfying “click”.
Most of those people have Victoria Baumann and Charlie Moreton to thank, the father-daughter duo behind the Victoria Essie Studio that produces fidget toys and other knickknacks out of their home in North Carolina.
It’s been over a year since the duo stumbled onto the 3D printing scene, and they’ve already caught the attention of millions (including adoring content creator Brittany Broski) with their ASMR-style behind-the-scenes social posts.
Baumann, 32, started Victoria Essie Studio in 2018 to sell her art and jewelry as a side business while working as a full-time teacher. Moreton, 51, is a 3D printing enthusiast who joined his daughter’s company in 2025 after discovering a design for a cupcake. a fidget clicker that fits her daughter’s art style: cute, colorful, and influenced by Y2K nostalgia.
Baumann’s art style is beautiful, colorful, and influenced by Y2K nostalgia.
Nathanael Berry of CNBC Make It
Together, they entered the market for push-button fidgets, or small devices designed to keep the user’s hands busy when they tend to type. Consider the next iteration of the fidget spinner of the 2010s. By 2025, the global fidget toy market is estimated to be worth more than $9 billion, according to Fortune Business Insights, and is projected to grow over the next decade.
Victoria Essie Studio generated $428,000 in revenue by 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. What started as two presses has now become a full-fledged business with major expansion plans.
Clicking on a trend
Fidget clickers are a type of tactile device, sometimes with an auditory component, that people press, click or swim with to help control their emotions or focus on tasks. Health experts say they can be especially beneficial for people with anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
Victoria Essie Studio fidgets “have the same kind of mechanical component as a mechanical keyboard,” says Baumann. “So it has that really nice tactile feel and click.”
Fidgets aren’t just for kids, says Baumann. “There are a lot of older people who just need something to click through the day.”
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After the initial success of selling fidgets for their first cake, the duo began working with artists who created fidget designs – from cereal bowls to toadstools – and then paid a commercial license for the design so they could print it. Baumann and Moreton have also started making some of their designs, including fidgets like inhalers, sticky note holders and crayons.
The two work closely together throughout the production process: Baumann goes to Moreton’s house, they decide which fidget they want to make, they choose the colors and they print. Each fidget is made of approximately two to six 3D printed plastic parts. One printed sheet produces several fidget parts, depending on their size. Printing pieces of simple fidgets can take about 17 hours; complex and large projects with different colors can take three to four days.
Moreton and Baumann now have more than a dozen 3D printers at the Victoria Essie Studio.
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The assembly process is straightforward: Baumann and Moreton say they can assemble about 100 fidget clickers in less than an hour. Once assembled, Baumann takes the products to his home to pack and ship.
Themed product drops work well, say: Think of a food collection featuring funny-looking cupcakes, ice cream cones, candy and the like. One of their best-selling fidgets is a heart-shaped box of chocolates, similar to what you might pick up on Valentine’s Day but with squeezable plastic truffles embedded inside instead of edible food. The chocolates look so realistic that many times when Baumann posts videos of himself assembling the pieces, people will comment (jokingly or otherwise) that he should be wearing food safety gloves.
Running the numbers
In 2025, the business generated an estimated net revenue of $428,000 and a net profit of approximately $94,000, according to documents reviewed by Make It.
The business averages about 1,500 orders a month, Moreton said; on off days when new designs are released, up to 400 orders can come in at once. Standard-sized or hand-held fidgets cost between $5 to $30, while life-sized fidgets (like a plate full of “waffles” instead of the smaller version) run $100 to $125.
Victoria Essie Studio has seen success with delicious food designs, with fidgets shaped like cakes, ice cream, waffles, chocolate, cereal and more.
Nathanael Berry of CNBC Make It
The major costs of the business include paying for equipment (they now have 30 printers), product components (including the filament that goes into the printers), shipping costs, and subscribing to the artists who print their designs.
Their clients tend to be women, and neurodivergent people, and they vary in age.
“People have realized that it is not just [for] kids,” Baumann said. “There are a lot of adults who need something to click through the day.”
Leaving business education
Baumann says he never thought he could start a business. She started her career as a kindergarten teacher working with children aged 2 to 5 and taught between 2015 and 2019. Baumann says the pay was low, and he often worked odd jobs at night and on weekends.
“I really liked being a teacher, but being a teacher really burned me out,” he said. Baumann began creating and selling watercolor paintings and polymer clay jewelry on the side for extra income in 2018 and says her students’ parents encouraged her to continue.
He quit teaching in 2019 due to burnout, he says, and took a part-time job managing an ice cream shop. In 2022, he gave up his ice-cream and made the Victoria Essie Studio his full-time job.
“I thought I would teach and work two part-time jobs for the rest of my life,” Baumann said. “To be able to do this, it’s a breath of fresh air.”
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“I thought I was going to be a teacher all my life, but I’m so grateful for the opportunity this all brought me,” said Baumann.
He says he feels good about having a solid salary — he paid himself $36,000 in 2025 and says he plans to increase it to $78,000 in 2026, nearly four times his salary as a teacher. Baumann says she feels like a mother to her five-year-old daughter while working from home.
“I thought I would teach and work two part-time jobs for the rest of my life,” he said. “To be able to do this, it’s a breath of fresh air.”
Building a family business
Moreton works with his daughter in addition to his day job as a network security engineer. He opted out of taking a salary from Victoria Essie Studio in 2025, he says: “That was part of me buying and making sure the business was healthy enough before I could take any money out of it.”
In 2026, he started taking a salary of $750 a week. He spends about 40 extra hours a week on studio-related work in addition to his full-time job.
Besides their salaries, the business partners reinvest their profits in the studio and never take out business loans, Moreton said.
The father and daughter behind Victoria Essie Studio, along with mother and boyfriend.
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Both father and daughter admit that their working relationship comes naturally, even during the long days of packing hundreds of orders. “[A] the benefit of working with your family is that we can see each other when the other person falls behind or runs out of battery, and we pick each other up,” says Baumann.
Moreton says the best part of working in the business is spending time with her daughter and choosing new designs together.
Looking ahead
Aside from the fidgets that make up the majority of their inventory, Victoria Essie Studio still sells an assortment of earrings and home accessories such as trinket bowls and coasters.
Baumann says his lifestyle now is much better than it was when he was teaching and keeping busy with multiple part-time jobs.
“I loved what I was doing, and I loved the impact I was making. But today’s teaching climate and that [people] waiting for teachers to leave is not the reason why I entered the teaching profession and not where I see myself in the future,” he said, mentioning the daily challenges, low pay and pressure that he says plagues the teaching sector.
Baumann says he’s glad his business still benefits children, especially neurodivergent children. Although the majority of his customers are adults, many of them buy things for children that are part of their lives, such as a teacher buying clickers for his students, or a dentist filling a toy box for children who visit his office.
He doesn’t regret making the pivot, he says: “I’m definitely happier having a fidget business than being a teacher.”
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