Terms and Conditions

Last updated: 20 August 2026

1. Who we are

Tale Time Studio is a South African business that creates personalised children's storybooks, personalised colouring-in books and related keepsake products. Every product is made to order using the names, photos and preferences supplied by the customer, and is delivered either as a digital file or as a printed book delivered by courier within South Africa.

Business and contact details

These Terms and Conditions govern your use of our website, products and services. By using the website, placing an order or accepting delivery of a product, you agree to be bound by them. If you do not agree with them, please do not use the website or place an order.

These Terms and Conditions should be read together with our Refund and Cancellation Policy, our Delivery Policy and our Privacy Policy.

2. Who may place an order

You must be 18 years or older to place an order.

By placing an order you confirm that:

• you are legally able to enter into a binding agreement
• the information you give us is true, accurate and complete
• you are authorised to give us any personal information, photographs or other content you submit
• where you upload a photograph of a child, you are the parent or legal guardian of that child, or you have the consent of the parent or legal guardian
• you consent, on your own behalf and on behalf of any child shown in the photographs, to those photographs being processed by us and by our service providers, including artificial intelligence tools, for the sole purpose of creating your book

3. What we sell

Our range may include, and will change from time to time:

• personalised storybooks, sold as a digital PDF, a softcover printed book or a hardcover printed book
• personalised colouring-in books, sold as a digital PDF or a printed book
• other personalised keepsake items and add-ons offered on the website
• free or promotional digital products offered from time to time

The pages, formats, languages and inclusions of each product are described on the product and pricing sections of the website. Because every product is personalised, the finished item depends directly on the accuracy and quality of the details and photographs you give us.

We may change product features, formats, materials, pricing and availability at any time without notice. A change will not affect an order that has already been paid for.

4. Prices, payment and currency

All prices are shown on the website in South African Rand (ZAR) and are the total amount payable for that item unless the website states otherwise. Delivery is free on qualifying printed products delivered within South Africa, as set out in our Delivery Policy.

Tale Time Studio is not a registered VAT vendor, so no VAT is charged on our prices.

Payment is processed securely by Payfast. Payment may be made by Visa or Mastercard debit and credit card, by Instant EFT, or by any other method offered on the Payfast checkout page at the time of your order. Bank transfer details are available on request.

Card transactions are acquired for Tale Time Studio by Payfast, who use the strongest encryption available and TLS (formerly known as Secure Sockets Layer) to secure the transaction. No card details are stored on the Tale Time Studio website. Payment card details are entered on Payfast's secure hosted payment page and are never seen or held by us.

By placing an order you authorise Payfast to charge the full amount due to your chosen payment method.

We try to keep pricing accurate at all times. If an obvious pricing error is displayed and you place an order based on that error, we may contact you to offer the correct price or to cancel the order and refund you in full.

5. Placing an order and our acceptance

All orders are subject to our acceptance. Your order is accepted once payment has cleared and we have sent you an order confirmation by email.

We may decline, cancel or limit any order where:

• the product or a required material is unavailable
• the content you submitted is unsuitable, unlawful or infringes someone else's rights
• there has been a pricing or technical error
• we suspect fraud or misuse
• we are unable to produce the book to the standard we are willing to deliver

If we cancel an order for any of these reasons, we will refund you in full within 30 days. See our Refund and Cancellation Policy.

6. What you need to give us, and what you are responsible for

To make your book we will normally need:

• the child's first name and age or age range
• the language you want the book printed in
• the names and roles of supporting characters such as parents, siblings, friends or pets
• photographs of each person or pet who appears in the book
• a gift message or dedication, where the product includes one
• your delivery and contact details

You are responsible for checking that everything you submit is correct before you approve your preview. This includes spelling of names, the gift message, the language and the delivery address.

We are not responsible for errors in a finished product where those errors come from information you gave us, including misspelled names, the wrong language selection, an incorrect delivery address, or photographs that are blurred, badly lit, heavily shadowed, cropped or otherwise unsuitable. We will tell you if a photograph is not usable and ask for a replacement before we proceed.

7. Your content, and the licence you give us

When you upload a photograph, text or any other content, you confirm that:

• you own the content or have the right to use it
• the content does not infringe anyone else's rights
• the content is not unlawful, defamatory, offensive or inappropriate
• you have the necessary consent to upload the photograph of any child shown in it

You grant Tale Time Studio a limited, non-exclusive licence to use, process, edit and reproduce that content for the sole purpose of creating, reviewing, printing, delivering and supporting your order, and for handling any reprint, replacement or query relating to it.

We do not claim ownership of your original photographs, and we do not use them for marketing, for public display or for training public artificial intelligence models without your separate written consent.

How long we keep your photographs, and how to ask us to delete them, is set out in our Privacy Policy.

8. Preview, approval and changes

Every personalised book is previewed before it is finalised. This is the core of how we work and it is the basis of our money-back guarantee.

1. Once we have your order and your photographs, we produce your book and send you a digital preview by email.
2. You then have 5 business days to either approve the preview or ask for changes.
3. If you ask for changes, we make them and send you an updated preview.
4. Once you approve, a digital order is emailed to you and a printed order goes to print.

One round of changes is included at no charge. Further rounds may be quoted for, at our discretion.

A change request covers production issues, such as:

• spelling or text errors
• layout or illustration problems
• a character who does not reasonably resemble the photograph supplied
• content that does not reasonably reflect the brief you gave us

A change request does not cover a change to the choices that shape the whole book, such as the child's name, the language, the format, the supporting characters or a different set of photographs. Those choices are used to build the book from the start, so changing them means making a new book. If you want a book built on different choices, please place a new order, or contact us and we will tell you what it would cost.

Automatic approval. If you do not respond to the preview within 5 business days, and we have sent you at least one reminder, we may treat the preview as approved and proceed with production. This protects your delivery date. If you need more time, simply tell us and we will hold the order.

9. Personalised goods and your right to return them

Our products are personalised and made to order. They are made specifically for you, carry a child's name and likeness, and cannot be resold.

For that reason, once you have approved your preview and the book has been printed or the digital file has been sent, the product is not eligible for return or refund because you have changed your mind.

Before that point you are fully protected. You may cancel and receive a full refund at any time before you approve your preview for production, for any reason. The full detail, including damaged or incorrect goods, is in our Refund and Cancellation Policy.

Nothing in these Terms and Conditions limits your rights under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 or any other South African law where a product is defective, unsafe or materially different from what was ordered.

10. Delivery

Digital products are emailed to the address you supply. Printed products are delivered by courier to the delivery address you supply, within South Africa.

Delivery timeframes, delivery areas, delivery charges and what to do if a parcel does not arrive are set out in full in our Delivery Policy.

Risk of loss or damage passes to you on delivery to the address you supplied.

11. Intellectual property

The website, our branding, our copy, our illustrations, our page layouts, our story text and the design of our finished books belong to Tale Time Studio or are used by us under licence.

When you buy a product you receive a personal, non-transferable, non-commercial licence to keep, read, share within your household and enjoy the finished product. You may make personal copies of a digital book for your own family's use.

Without our written permission you may not:

• sell or commercially reproduce the product
• copy our page layouts, story structures or illustrations for your own product
• remove branding or copyright notices
• use our website content or generated assets commercially

12. Acceptable use of the website

You agree not to:

• misuse the website or interfere with its operation or security
• upload harmful code
• use the service for any unlawful purpose
• impersonate another person
• attempt to reach restricted areas of the site
• scrape, copy or reverse engineer the platform or its underlying systems

We may suspend or block access where we reasonably suspect misuse.

13. Privacy and personal information

We collect and process personal information, including photographs of children, in order to make and deliver your order. How we do that, who we share it with, how long we keep it and how you exercise your rights is set out in our Privacy Policy.

We process personal information in line with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA).

Payfast processes your payment information under its own privacy policy, available at https://payfast.io/privacy-policy/.

14. Service providers

We use trusted third parties to run the business, including providers of payment processing, website hosting, email, file storage, printing, courier delivery, analytics and artificial intelligence tools used to help create personalised content. We share only the information reasonably needed for each purpose. Our current providers are listed in our Privacy Policy.

15. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

We work hard to deliver a high quality product. The website and the service are otherwise provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis to the extent permitted by law.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Tale Time Studio will not be liable for indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from your use of the website, delays in delivery, technical interruptions, inaccuracies in information you supplied, or the failure of a third party outside our reasonable control.

Where we are found liable, our total liability is limited to the amount you paid for the order concerned.

Nothing in this clause excludes any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability under the Consumer Protection Act.

16. Events outside our control

We are not liable for delay or failure to perform where it is caused by something outside our reasonable control, including load shedding and power failure, internet or network outages, courier disruption, strikes, fire, flood, severe weather, government action, or the failure of a printing or delivery supplier.

Where such an event delays your order, we will tell you as soon as we can and give you a revised date. If the delay is unreasonable, you may cancel and we will refund you in full.

17. Changes to these Terms and Conditions

We may update these Terms and Conditions from time to time. The version published on the website at the time you place your order is the version that applies to that order. Continued use of the website after an update means you accept the updated version.

18. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms and Conditions are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction.

If you are unhappy, please contact us first at hello@taletime.studio so that we can try to resolve it directly. Most problems are fixed with a reprint or a refund within a day or two.

19. Contact us

Tale Time Studio

• Email: hello@taletime.studio
• Telephone and WhatsApp: 072 242 0390
• Physical address: 1 Howie Street, Rynfield, Benoni, 1501, South Africa
• Contact form: https://taletime.studio/#contact

We answer queries within one business day.