The Keybie Cafe started from three things: a single fangirl’s desire for anime merchandise, a love of chibi art and crafts, and a lot of scrap.
It was from a mix of these things that the Keybie Cafe was created—and now it offers several other fandoms their favorite characters drawn in a signature dotty-eyed, chibi style the keybie is known for, while still made from scrap materials. You wouldn’t be able to tell that keybies were made from scrap though, not with their wood-like consistency and clean, plastic-laminate finish.
Now the Keybie Cafe runs on family efforts and the combined, continuous creativity, bringing keybie cuteness everywhere.
Hi! I’m Micah Valero, born and raised in the Philippines. I started the Keybie Cafe, and have been creating keybies with my mom Maricel Valero since 2008.
Mom keeps a close eye on finances and operations while I focus on marketing and designing (she and my late dad Mike used to source supplies and handle nitty gritty details such as packaging). Keybies are manufactured right at home with the on-the-side employment of the household help.
Each keybie used to be illustrated by me, but to accommodate the steadily growing demand for new designs and characters, I assembled a small Keybie Team comprised of talented artists.
Stay tuned for our new designs and peeks into our creative processes on social media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest!
