about happy monster co

hi, my name is niki. i am happy monster.

Niki Grangruth is the owner and founder of the Happy Monster Company.

Simply put, she loves art, design, working with kids and kids at heart, and making stuff.

The longer version is that she is passionate about leading a creative life and encouraging others to do the same. She believes power of play-based learning, the impact of arts and creativity on social emotional development, and empowering families to engage in their children’s development.

Niki has over thirteen years of experience working in arts education and education administration. Her experience includes working with some of the most amazing and resilient, yet under-resourced, public schools in Chicago, IL to develop, maintain and evaluate programs to improve learning outcomes for students and families.

She has worked as both a teaching artist and program administrator in both elementary schools and high schools creating programming and curricula that supports creativity as a life and career skill for students and their families. She has also taught in the arts at the university level at various colleges. And her most in depth experience to date is being a mom to two creative and curious little people (her own happy monsters).

She brings all of this experience to creating beautifully designed products, materials, and resources to help children, their families, their schools and learning-based organizations and institutions to engage communities in creative play-based learning.