What do you do when you need time to focus? For thousands of people across the United States, the answer may be to reach for a piece of Technicolor plastic that makes a soft, satisfying “click” when pressed.
Many of them would like to thank father-daughter duo Victoria Baumann and Charlie Moreton of Victoria Essie Studio, who make fidget toys and other gadgets from their home in North Carolina.
It’s only been a little over a year since the duo entered the niche market of 3D printed fidget clickers, but they’ve already captured the attention of millions of people (including the adoration of content creator Brittany Brosky) through their behind-the-scenes ASMR-style social posts.
Bauman, 32, founded Victoria Essie Studio in 2018 to sell art and jewelry on the side while working as a full-time teacher. Morton, 51, is a 3D printing hobbyist who joined his daughter’s company in 2025 after finding a design for a cake-shaped hand clicker that fit his daughter’s art style. It’s cute, colorful, and inspired by 2000s nostalgia.
Bauman’s art style is cute, colorful, and influenced by Y2K nostalgia.
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Together, they entered the market for fidget clickers, small devices designed to keep fidgety users’ hands occupied. Think of it as the next version of the fidget spinner from the 2010s. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global fidget toy market was valued at more than $9 billion in 2025 and is expected to grow over the next decade.
Victoria Essie Studio made $428,000 in revenue in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. What started as a two-printer business has now turned into a full-fledged business with big expansion plans.
Click on a trend
A fidget clicker is a type of tactile tool, sometimes with an auditory component, that you press, click, or fidget to regulate your emotions or focus on a task. Health experts say it’s especially effective for people with anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Victoria Essie Studio’s fidgets have “the same type of mechanical components as a mechanical keyboard,” says Bauman. “It has a really nice feel and click.”
Fidgeting isn’t just for kids, Bauman says. “There are a lot of adults who need something to get through the day.”
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After successfully selling their first cake fidget, the two began working with artists who created designs for fidgets, from cereal bowls to mushrooms, and paid commercial licenses for the designs so they could print them. Bauman and Morton also began making some of their own designs, including inhalers, sticky note holders, and crayon-like fidgets.
The two work closely together throughout the production process. Bauman goes to Morton’s house, decides which fidget he wants to make, chooses the colors, and does the printing. Each fidget consists of approximately 2 to 6 3D printed plastic parts. One printed sheet creates dozens of fidget components, depending on size. Printing the simpler fidget parts can take approximately 17 hours. Complex and large projects with a variety of colors may take approximately 3-4 days.
Morton and Bauman currently have more than 20 3D printers for Victoria Essie Studio.
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The assembly process is very simple, with Bauman and Morton saying they can assemble about 100 fidget clickers in less than an hour. Once assembled, Bauman takes the product home, packs it, and ships it.
They say themed product drops work. Think food collections featuring quirky-looking pastries, ice cream cones, candies, and more. One of the best-selling fidgets is a heart-shaped box of chocolates like the ones you buy for Valentine’s Day, but instead of an edible treat, they have clickable plastic truffles embedded inside. The chocolate looks so realistic that when Bauman posts videos of her assembling the pieces, people often comment (jokingly or not) that she should wear food safety gloves.
run the numbers
In 2025, the business brought in about $428,000 in gross revenue and about $94,000 in net income, according to documents reviewed by Make It.
Morton said the business averages about 1,500 orders a month. On drop days when new designs are released, we can receive up to 400 orders at a time. Standard-sized or hand-held fidgets cost between $5 and $30, while life-sized fidgets (such as full-sized “waffle” dishes rather than mini versions) cost between $100 and $125.
Victoria Essie Studio has had success with whimsical food designs using fidgets to resemble cakes, ice creams, waffles, chocolates, cereals and more.
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The biggest costs of this business include shipping equipment (we currently have 30 printers), product parts (including the filament that feeds the printers), supplies, and paying subscriptions to the artists who print our designs.
The customer base includes many women and nervous people, and a wide range of age groups.
“People are realizing it’s not just for kids,” Bauman said. “There are a lot of adults who need something to get through the day.”
Quit education to start a business
Bauman says she never thought she would start a business. She started her career as a kindergarten teacher working with children aged 2 to 5 years and taught from 2015 to 2019. According to Bauman, the pay was low and he often did odd jobs at night and on weekends.
“I really loved being a teacher, but I got really burned out on being a teacher,” she says. Bauman started making and selling watercolor and polymer clay jewelry to earn extra income in 2018, and said her students’ parents encouraged her to keep doing it.
She said she quit teaching in 2019 due to burnout and took a part-time job running an ice cream shop. By 2022, she quit her ice cream job and made Victoria Essie Studio her full-time job.
“I thought I would be working two part-time jobs as a teacher for the rest of my life,” Bauman says. “When we can do this, it’s a breath of fresh air.”
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“I really thought I would be a teacher for the rest of my life, but I’m very, very grateful for the opportunity this has given me,” Bauman said.
She said she’s happy to have a steady income, paying herself $36,000 in 2025, but plans to increase that to $78,000 in 2026, nearly four times her salary as a teacher. Bauman said she feels like a mother figure to her 5-year-old daughter while working from home.
“I thought I would be working two part-time jobs as a teacher for the rest of my life,” she says. “When we can do this, it’s a breath of fresh air.”
building a family business
In addition to his day job as a network security engineer, Morton works with his daughter. He chose not to receive a salary from Victoria Essie Studios in 2025, he says. “That was part of what I agreed to and making sure the business was healthy enough before I took the money out.”
In 2026, he began receiving a weekly salary of $750. In addition to his full-time job, he spends about 40 hours a week doing studio-related work.
Morton said his business partner reinvested profits into the studio in addition to his salary, and he never needed to take out a business loan.
They are the father-daughter duo behind Victoria Essie Studio, flanked by their mother and boyfriend.
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Father and daughter agree that their working relationship comes naturally, even during long days packing hundreds of orders. “The benefit of working with a family is that each of you can see if the other is a little behind or your battery level is a little behind, and you pick up each other’s slack,” Bauman says.
Morton says her favorite part of working in the business is spending time with her daughter and choosing new designs together.
Looking to the future
In addition to fidgets, which make up a large portion of Victoria Essie Studio’s inventory, Victoria Essie Studio also sells household items such as earrings and small plates and coasters.
Bauman said her current lifestyle is much better than when she was juggling multiple part-time jobs as a teacher.
“I loved what I was doing, and I loved the impact I was having. But today’s educational environment and what (people) expect from teachers is not why I went into teaching, and it’s not where I want to be in the future,” she said, citing the daily hardships, low pay and overall stress that she says plagues the teaching profession.
Bauman said she’s happy that her business still benefits children, especially neurodivergent children. Although the majority of her customers are adults, many of them also purchase items for the children in their lives, such as a teacher purchasing clickers for her students or a dentist’s office restocking toy boxes for children visiting the office.
She says she has no regrets about making the change, saying, “I’m definitely happier running my fidget business than I was as a teacher.”
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