IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE THAT COUNTS

Inspired By Heartbreak & Drink, Toymaker Makes Gutsy Move

By Linda Seccaspina

YESTERDAY THE TOPIC DU JOUR WAS MAD MEN‘S JANUARY JONES EATING HER PLACENTA in order to gain nutrients following the birth of baby. Honestly, I have no problem with this as long as it’s not me eating this supposed delicacy. After had my first child, my husband looked at the placenta and said it looked like a heaping plate of BBQ.

Today’s stomach-churner is a IHeartGuts, a website with heart and liver, kidney, intestine, appendix, spleen, testicle, etcetera etcetera.

Founder Wendy Bryan had to briefly pull her uterus from shelves because the ovaries were deemed a choking hazard to children — but ” the recalled uterus is soooo 2009,” she says. The new uterus is child-friendly!

IHeartguts is the “brainchild of an anatomically obsessed illustrator who loves internal organs.” The company was borne after Bryan drew a heart immortalizing years of “‘bad hookups, dead-end relationships and lame- o- boyfriends,” according to her site. A bad smoking and drinking habit inspired her to draw a nasty looking liver and polluted lungs. Years later, her canny husband prodded, ““Why don’t you do something with those darned guts?””

So off Bryan went creating her individual plush organs. She even created an entire set of reproductive organs that sell in stores and science museums across the US.

Bryan does ‘pop up shows’ all over the country and usually donates ten percent to some worthy clinic or health institute from each trunk show sale.Wendy has a daily blog on her site and promotes her stuffed guts with the love and the respect they so deserve. The organs are off to Philadelphia Science Festival on April 21, then back to their D.C. home for the USA Science & Engineering Festival April 28-29.

It’s amazing that even with IHeartGuts in Washington, D.C., many Republican politicians still don’t know what a uterus is and to whom it belongs. Bryan should design a special “Rick Santorum Collection” for the Republican candidate hopeful who believes that contraception harms women and pregnant women receive prenatal testing so they can facilitate abortion.

On second thought maybe she should create a special brain collection for the candidate instead as he appears to be greatly lacking one.

We heart you Wendy Bryan for your gutsy endeavors!

Linda Seccaspina loves snark and scandal and can’t wait for Beyoncé to get busted for faking her pregnancy. She writes regularly for the dating site Zoomers. Follow her on Twitter @@Mcpheeeeee.