Kids Activities – Crepe paper art

The boys and I decided to get a little creative this week in preparation for Father’s Day coming up in September. We thought we would gift their Dad some awesome art works that we could then hang around the house.

I had a spare few canvases floating around and using Pinterest as my inspiration we decided to try some tissue paper art! I worked out pretty quickly thought that our tissue paper didn’t bleed as much as we liked so I found some spare crepe paper which worked a treat!!

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Meet the Maker – Things by Bean

I am a massive fan of birthdays as you can imagine being a toy blog and gift guide site, so when I was introduced to Jo Power aka “Happy Birthday Girl” extraordinaire I had to find out more about her.

Jo is the head honcho over at Things By Bean and has been since she started the company in 2011. Things by Bean is an awesome stationery brand based in Melbourne that now stocks in over 50 retailers in Australia! A phenomenal effort in such a short space of time, oh and did I mention Jo became a Mum during that time as well.

Jo has even had the honour of travelling to New York City for the National Stationery Show which I think is pretty awesome as basically stationery stores are like my FAVE stores after toy stores. There is just something about cards, gift wrapping and all that paper. I have been known to be lost in stationery stores in NYC, Paris and even Tokyo!

This year, Jo expanded Things by Bean introducing an awesome blog and podcast. The blog has heaps of cool DIY party ideas as well as some pretty crazy kind of cake recipes.

The podcast is next level, hosted by Jo Power and Jeremy Gay, Happy Birthday the Podcast is about all things birthday and celebrations. Introducing some fab ideas I had never known, like Ancient Egyptians were the first to give birthday cards! Given my major at University was Archaeology, that is one of the coolest things I have heard all year.

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Toy of the month – July 2017

noble This month we are testing out some seriously awesome handmade colouring in mats from Australian maker Noble Cubs and I have to say my kids are absolutely loving them!

All  designed and handmade in Queensland by mother and creator Martina Noble, these eco-friendly toys are completely machine washable, and brilliant for entertaining kids whilst out and about. I would much prefer my kids play with these  fab washable mats than the dreaded tech ( oh tantrum city when you tell them no more playing!)

Martina kindly gifted us two colouring in and doodling mats to test out and review.  My 5 year old was so excited to see the construction mat when he opened it up and he was super intrigued as to how it was going to work. I have to admit I was too. I wasn’t sure how the washable markers were going to colour onto the fabric and I was equally intrigued as to whether they would wash out in full to enable further uses of the mat.

So how do it all go?

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Kids Activities – DIY cardboard computer

We did a change up with our playroom last month and as a result there is now a little cubby area. Well technically it is meant to be another desk/craft area but Hudson has taken it as his little den.

As a result he decided he now needed a “Spy computer” for his new secret area! He has such a creative imagination that I just can’t resist when he asks me to make him something and well, as I have such a love affair with cardboard I thought, why not!?

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Kazoops books – now available!

We blogged about our fave TV show Kazoops back in August last year and let you know about the release of their fab music. We even got to visit their studios in Manly to see how the magic happens. As you can imagine, then we are super excited to announce that the merchandising is just about to start! YAY!

We have been patiently waiting and waiting and finally it is here. First up are the books, yes beautiful story books and activity-sticker books. Kazoops books will be available on shelves at Big W, Target and Dymocks in Australia on  Monday 3rd July.

And yes you guessed it, the plush toys range will be released by TOMY this November, both in Australia and the UK! Yippee!!

But back to the fab books, and yes we may have a sneaky preview of them for you. Also if you keep reading, a chance to win a set of story and sticker-activity books too! Yippee.

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Toy of the month – June 2017

Hello lovely peeps, can we really already be in June, half through 2017?! I know I always say it but gosh time certainly flies with kids and even more so once they go to school. I wrongly assumed school would provide heaps more time for me to blog and work (and maybe do those household things called chores) but I miss the cruisey preschool days where we could just play, play and play!

We are having cooler days here in Sydney, still sunny most days but it is definitely feeling like Winter here. As the boys were both born in England and lived a large amount of their time in the Northern Hemisphere, we are quite used to the colder days  and secretly quite like to hibernate at home as this is when we play with our toys the most.

The winters here are more like a English summer’s day in terms of warmer temperatures but the mornings and evenings are cold. And don’t get me started on the seriously freezing cold houses. I do miss central heating as reverse cycle air conditioning doesn’t quite cut it.

This month’s toy is a super flexible kids toy that works brilliantly both indoors and outdoors, truly perfect then for Australia. We have featured it a lot on our Instagram account and I thought I should introduce it to the blog too! So what is it you ask?

Our beloved waytoplay road track of course!

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