It’s lovely to receive a message saying ”we really like your blog”.
It’s fab when accompanied by an offer to review products we’ve not come across but know we’ll love as soon as we start browsing the on-line catalogue.
And it’s delightful when the products are toys; beautiful fair trade toys made using traditional handmade techniques. The Traidcraft shop is the perfect place to start for birthday gifts or a little pre-Chirstmas ideas collecting.
We chose a finger puppet set as E is really loving role play at the moment. The finger puppets are beautifully made with padded faces so they’re very much like individual toys in their own right. They’re large on E’s tiny fingers so he favours us wearing them, or most especially Grandad! What he loves most is the boat bag they come in, he’ll happily play for ages putting small objects into it, closing the velcro, opening the velcro, taking things out, putting things in… in that satisfying way only a toddler can. With so many children’s toys relying on lights and sounds to make them interesting it’s so lovely to see such a simple toy like this creating so much pleasure and interactive play. Very handy and space-saving for car journeys too.
We also received a stainless steel panda cup and bowl set – a great option for real-life and make believe breakfasts. If I drank as much tea as E pretends to make for me I’d slosh when I walk and his own china tea cup lost it’s handle when it was dropped recently. This hand painted bowl and cup have received nothing but compliments since we’ve been using them, particularly the bowl which is every day for one snack or another. (the cup is small as you can see but as E’s not a big drinker at breakfast time he looks so proud when he holds it up and says ”Mum I drank it all”.
This is a lovely set for children and after lots of use there’s no sign of the enamel paint wearing (and yes it has been dropped a few times but no harm done). The only down side to a toddler adopting such a lovely panda bowl is that no other tableware will do so if giving it as a gift be sure to warn the parents to never lose sight of it at any time!
We were really impressed with the quality of these Traidcraft products and the range of toys and gifts for children available in the their on-line shop. Browsing the website for gift ideas couldn’t be easier with ready made suggestions for him and her. For those of you who like to get a head start on Christmas shopping there is something for everyone and delivery is free on orders over £50.
Traidcraft is the UK’s leading fair trade organisation. Their mission is to fight poverty through trade, practising and promoting approaches to trade that help poor people in developing countries transform their lives.
Disclosure: I was sent these toys to sample. I was not required to write a positive review and any opinions expressed are my own. Please note the toys we chose for this review are no longer available. If we were to chose from the current catalogue we really like these toys.
Lovely piccies of your sweet boy!