Remember when your youthful imagination turned a large cardboard box into a race car or a castle? Mike Welsh does, and now he has started a company that gives kids the stuff they need to create the playhouses of their dreams.

Build a Dream Playhouses is a newly launched producer of corrugated cardboard boxes that can be painted, colored and decorated to make one-of-a-kind playhouses. Welsh, a father and an established entrepreneur, thought of the idea and recruited two recent college grads, Andy Carcioppolo and Sam Cahill, to bring his vision to life. With a degree in business and industrial design, respectively, Carcioppolo and Cahill found they could make use of their talents and stay in Cleveland.

Build a Dream Playhouses was created through a collaboration with Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates, an industrial design firm based in Cleveland, and Smurfit Stone, a paperboard manufacturer in Ravenna.

"We believe that creating jobs in Cleveland, in the State of Ohio and ultimately across the globe is an important part of Build a Dream Playhouses," says Carcioppolo, who serves as COO. "We're thrilled to have an opportunity to do that in our hometown and to be a part of helping our region grow and thrive."

Build a Dream's products, which range from the "Cosmic Cruiser" to the "Pop 'n Play Kitchen," are made from 80 percent recycled materials, and are 100 percent recyclable.

As part of its launch efforts, the Build a Dream Playhouses team will be at the Children's Museum of Cleveland on Saturday, November 20, where kids can color their own cardboard creations.

SOURCE: Cleveland Children's Museum, Build a Dream Playhouse
WRITER: Diane DiPiero