WIN a Holiday For a Family of 4 To Orlando, Florida With Wild Science Kits- We Tried The Lava Lamp Factory!

A bit of a fun on a rainy afternoon with the Wild Science Lava Lamp Kit.  Technically marketed to girls I suppose, due to the leading packaging, but Smix and I have never let a bit of pink get in the way of being creative. 

A lot of the creative aisle in toy shops is aimed at girls. Sticker makers, friendship bracelet kits, fancy 3D pens- but we've always just bought toys like these for the fun of it, rather than say oh no, just because the box has girls only on it. So we were very happy to pick the Lava Lamp Kit out of a selection of Science themed toys to review. 

The kit has two different, but similar projects in it. The smaller glitter tube literally takes five minutes, the Lava Lamp takes maybe ten to fifteen minutes. The latter involves some mixing of powders, so you will need to supervise. However the entire project could be completed by someone Smix's age, nine, by themselves.

The kit itself is enjoyable, but a downside is the Lava Lamp is only temporary. You make little bath bomb type disks to drop into the oil/water/glitter tube which makes it move, but there is no lid to secure the tub properly, and once the bomb has stopped fizzing, that's it. It tells you to discard the mixture and do it over again if you want to have the Lava Lamp effect once more. I think this is a little misleading as you would think you would have a Lava Lamp to display in your room after completing the kit. 

The smaller glitter tube however is a permanent make, and you get a little flashing LED to put in the base of either tube to turn it into a pretty cool disco light.

There are dozens of different Wild Science experiment kits to choose from and they are running a very exciting competition throughout 2017 to win a holiday for a family of four to Orlando Florida. 

Simply buy a Wild Science product, keep receipt, then visit them online and invent the next kit for them to produce. What equipment and instructions will you need? Put together a product presentation and you & your family could be jetting off to Florida for a week. Prize even includes entrance to Disney World and the Kennedy Space Centre. As an extra special Science prize, you'll get to have lunch with an astronaut.

The competition is open until 31st December 2017, so get your thinking caps on! 

Make Frozen Drinks at Home With No Ice Or Mess- ChillFactor Frozen Brain Slushy Maker

Kids love slushies. I don't know why, but they are drawn to them like a moth to a flame. I remember as an 80s child coveting the Slush Puppies in Woolworths in Main Street, and more often than not being told no, it's a waste of money to pay that for frozen juice. I don't know what price they were in 1987, but a Slush drink for your kids now can cost anything between £1 and £5 if we are talking about them taking an arm & a leg at the cinema. 

So there's a range from Character Toys that can save us parents a small fortune, even in one summer season. 

For £12.99 you can purchase a spangly new  Chill Factor Slush Maker. Character sent us the new release 'Frozen Brain' cup, but you can get all colours and designs of cups that operate in the same manner. Slush Puppies are the number one cause of painful brain freeze, so it's a clever name, and also a design that appeals to those who love gory & gruesome monsters.

The tag line reads, 'slushies in less than a minute', which is half true, but some prep is needed. When you first get your Chill Factor, you need to dissemble the cup (very easy to do) and find the very inner, sectioned padded cup. This will need to be put in your freezer to harden for six hours or more. It's the magic that makes any drink into a slushie.

When your inner padded part has frozen, take it out of the freezer and reassemble the cup. You are now ready to make your drink. Take any drink, it can even be room temperature, and pour it into your Chill Factor cup. From experience I know that sugarfree drinks are really hard to get to Slush. You can use a dilute juice, Coke, fruit juice, anything with sugar content.  

Now you simply 'smoosh', crush and squish the outside of the cup for a couple of minutes. The padding is so cold that it starts to instantly freeze the drink inside. Because you are moving it around it becomes a slushie.  

Then simply drink with your straw or spoon. 

When you are finished, rinse the cup, dissemble and refreeze the inner padded part, and use again and again. 

It really is that clean and easy. No hauling out a blender to try to crush ice- no actual ice even needed. So for £12.99 you could have a slushie every day this summer without breaking the bank, or them spending all their pocket money.  

 Check out stockists- I'm pretty sure Smyth have them.

Ever Wonder Where Those Effortlessly Cool Hipster Parents Shop? Not Only Can I Tell You, But I've a 15% Off Code For You To Use: Little Citizens Boutique.

There's very little I don't like amongst the inventory on the  Little Citizens Boutique website, so choosing images to share with you was tricky to narrow down. The Holywood based retailer knows good design, and have just won a silver award for best toy & gift retailer in design. They also stock children's clothing and home wares, so here are some of my favourite items from their site.

Should you love what you see too, you can use the code KITSCH15 to get 15% off orders until midnight 30th September.  (The quick buy links aren't active- sorry! It's just how I saved the photos of the products!)

All the Details for Saturday's Grand Opening of NI's First 'The Entertainer' Store- The Toy Shop With a Heart

Location of The Entertainer- Castlecourt, just at the top of the escalators inside the front door, opposite Debenhams, beside Starbucks

This Saturday (13th August),  The Entertainer Toy shop add to their 130 strong, UK-wide stores by opening their first NI branch, in Castlecourt in Belfast. The Grand Opening on Saturday morning at 9am, is sure to be an exciting day, with costumed characters in attendance for photographs between 10am and 3pm. Lego's ninja pair Lloyd & Kai will be welcoming kids through the doors, as well as Star Wars favourites Chewbacca & Darth Vader, I'm sure there will be more than one parent wanting a snap with them too!

There will be balloons, demos and a free Lego gift with Lego purchases (while stocks last). If you fancy getting there early, then you might be one of the lucky 35 first in line. They will all receive a surprise voucher each, ranging from £5 right up to one lucky person winning £100. 

Ok, so who is 'The Entertainer'? Why do I call them the toy shop with a heart? And what makes them different to any other toy shop? 

The chain is family owned, with the first store opening just outside London in Amersham 35 years ago. One thing very different about the stores is they don't open on Sundays- they want their staff to have that day for family, and they have stuck to their guns on this even when it meant certain shopping centres were less reluctant to let them open there. But it's admirable that they've not budged on what they believe, and with expansion ongoing it proves you don't have to always bend on what you think is right just to please others. 

They also have a very clear social conscience. 10% of ALL their profit goes to charities, specifically children's charities. That totalled just under a million pounds last year, donated by the chain. They are the very first high street store to enable you to 'round up' your payment to a pound, with the difference being given to charity, when you pay by card. You may have come across this when paying on eBay or Dominos before, so if your total is £13.45, the card machine will give you the option to round up to £14 and the 55p goes to charity.  Here in NI that charity will be the NI Hospice, so it's local money for local kids- a big plus.

Also on Saturday morning at 830am there will be a trolley dash for Autism NI (I have always wanted to watch a trolley dash but the thought of doing one myself terrifies me!) 

What about the store itself? What makes going to The Entertainer better than going to Smyths, or Toys R Us? Well from our sneak peek tour round the shop, it has to be one thing most obviously- price.  

As Rebecca from Head Office showed us round the bright, colourful store I kept stopping at the unbelievable prices of some of the stock. Of course your Lego, Playmobil etc is similarly priced to other stores, but for example there were little boxes of craft games for a couple of pounds or even £1, bigger than Poundland toys and perfect for party bags or stocking fillers. 

Glitter activity bucket only £4, other games £1

Braiding games £1

In fact Rebecca told me The Entertainer specialise in pocket money toys, and trying to keep things under £25. They locate branches in towns and cities, rather than the trend of out of town shopping, and like to see the store as a treat to take your kids to when you've dragged them round shopping where you wanted to! Smix will certainly be more keen next time I want to visit Debenhams anyway.

Kids will love The Entertainer more than other toy shops as they like to have lots of the toys out of their packaging so you can test them out, or have a play. Anyone of a certain age will remember the pleading at our parents to please take us to the Early Learning Centre, to get in the one Cosy Coupe, little red & yellow car they would have out on display. That would be the highlight of the shopping trip, wheeling yourself around ELC with your little feet flying. Well The Entertainer is going to be like that- but for our kids!

Wubble Bubble demo- it's now on Smix' birthday list (p.s. It's £2 cheaper in The Entertainer than on Amazon) 

They cater from newborns up

They also pride themselves on trying to be very quick to pick up the latest trends. They tend to be first to the market with crazes like Loom Bands, Moshi Monsters & more currently Shopkins, Pom Pom Wow and Bunchems. 

There has been a big trend of making Pie Face videos for YouTube, the game where a spring loaded hand with whipped cream on it is passed around in a messy version of Russian roulette. Rebecca told me the game has actually been out for 11 years, but thanks to YouTube it's outselling brand new to market games. The Entertainer have the real thing, but also some similar alternatives, like 'Splat!' for half the price at just £10. You can even buy the cream in store- I found that really amusing for some reason! I think I'll be getting one of these for Christmas 2016 in the Spence household.

You can see from my photographs there's a very clear pink & blue divide to the in store decoration. I subscribe to the notion that toys are toys and for all, so I had planned on asking them why they have a 'girls' section' and a 'boy's section'- then I noticed that absolutely NOWHERE does it say 'girls' toys' or 'boys' toys'- so it was actually my own brain jumping to conclusions, when in reality there is no gender labelling in store, and boys can shop in pink if they want and vice versa, without being labelled the opposite. 

£10 Ever After dolls

The store itself is designed to be easily navigated by pram, with slightly lower than usual stands so you can keep an eye on your child if they are excitedly running around. Another plus for busy mums and dads, is their 30 min click and collect service. Go on The Entertainer Toy Shop website, find the item you want to buy. Check it's in stock and reserve the item to pick up in store. 

This is a godsend at Christmas time and saves traipsing round half a dozen stores trying to locate that one most-wanted item on Santa's list. Reserve it, pick it up- easy. 

Now this touch I absolutely adore. The till points in The Entertainer have little wooden steps so your child can climb up and pay for their own item should they wish to do so. How cool is that? 

Finally I couldn't finish this blog without a word from Smix. What did he make of the new toy store chain? 

He liked how bright the store was, and that he could play with the Wubble Bubble. He said the labelling of the departments was good because he could easily read which section was which, and where to go to find certain toys. He noticed if you were in one section and didn't like anything, there was always something in another section you did like. He loved the choice from the pocket money stands, but he would like to see more Playmobil in store.

Sadly we can't make the grand opening by the mayor of Belfast on Saturday morning, but do tweet me if you go and let me see what's going on (@rudedoodle) With the Belfast store creating even more local jobs hiring for Christmas this Autumn, and plans to expand throughout NI, let's give The Entertainer a warm welcome this weekend.

Zoingo Boingo: The Flexible Fun Pogo Toy That Tempted Smix Away From His IPad & Out to the Garden!

This week we received the new Zoingo Boingo pogo toy from Flair toys, a spin on the traditional pogo stick with a bouncing ball base and bungee cord handle which allows for more movement and the ability to do more tricks than before. With the weather finally picking up it was the perfect time to tempt Smix outside and off his iPad to learn the skill to 'boinging'.

The Zoingo Boingo is suitable for age 8 and up, so Smix is exactly the target range. The toy comes boxed, and you have a guide to inflate the ball base to prepare it for use. This is where we had a little trouble. Initially we inflated it as much as it could be inflated, which made the ball base quite hard and with no give. This was our mistake! Do not over inflate the ball, it doesn't need to be like a football, allow some give in it and it's a LOT easier to get the hang of pogoing on the Zoingo Boingo. Allow for it to be a little 'squidgy'.

One side of the footplate has a lip, put your foot on this side to start

Around the ball base is the foot plate, and you'll see one side has a little lip. This is the side you put your first foot on, then tip, balance and bounce. Smix got the hang of it very quickly (now we had fixed the over inflated base problem) and within the first session he could do 17 bounces in a row.

The Zoingo works best on grass or pavement, and as you'd imagine isn't suitable for indoors on carpet. I'm just happy to get Smix outside at last and off his iPad! The Zoingo Boingo will be on sale  via Smyths Toys for £24.99 or you can purchase now on Amazon.

The Ugglys' Pet Shop is Stackable Grossness

Its not too long until we will be hunting for stocking fillers & presents for friend's and relative's kids. The Ugglys' Pet Store is a stackable base for collecting the separate blocks that double as pet homes for Ugglys pets.

It makes fart noises, so obviously it sets kids off with the giggles as soon as they get their hands on it. 

The theme of Ugglys is as you would imagine, totally gross animals. Our favourite from the original series had to be the horrible pet fish called 'The Rank Tank'! He's gone on the Christmas list. He'll probably last longer than any real goldfish we've ever owned.

As you'd imagine, kids love these things. We had Garbage Pail Kids in the 80s so this is a bit like the animal version of those. You can buy them as single toys, or in multipacks, with 101 pets to collect. Some of the sets include blind bag surprise toys, which are the big thing these days.

Michael loved the pet shop, so I'll be hunting down some individual Ugglys for stocking fillers. 

Yummy Nummies: The New Creative Kitchen Craze From Japan.

Yummy Nummies are little kits for kids to make teeny tiny replicas of full size meals. You'll find them soon in the toy aisle starting at £6.99, rather than home baking, as they are for novelty value rather than being designed to replace a meal. And they are a lot of fun. We were sent the cookie and pizza sets to play with, and found them easy, entertaining and quite tasty too.

We started with the cookie kit. Below shows everything that came in the pack. A very big plus is that you don't need to add anything else. Often I've promised to make buns from a kit with Michael, got home and realised the pack requires and egg, or milk and I'm all out. The only things you'll need that aren't in the pack are a pair of scissors, water and a microwave. Again a huge plus is you use a microwave to cook. No wasting energy and money heating the oven to bake six cookies. 

You have packets of dough and chocolate chips and a little scoop. The instructions tell you how many scoops of dough powder to put into the little mixing tray (another plus- no bowls to wash up after!) and how many scoops of water. 

We separated the dough mix into the baking tray ready for the microwave. Looking at the tray I thought, 'this is never going to work' especially as the cooking time was only 15 seconds in the microwave! 

But, they came out like this. One minute to cool then we scooped them out. They were tiny but tasted spot on.  We had enough dough powder left to make three batches.

Next up- mini pizzas! 

Again everything is included. You just need scissors, water and a microwave. 

Again the instructions are really easy for kids to follow, number of scoops of dough to a number of scoops of water. The pizza 'bases' go in for ten seconds. 

Then you measure and mix the sauce, and whizz for a further five seconds, then sprinkle on cheese powder. They are so so tiny, but they do taste like their full size equivalent. 

Great fun and an excellent treat toy for your budding baker or chef. The full range of Yummy Nummies will be on www.character-online.co.uk and www.toysrus.co.uk soon. The savoury kits include chicken nuggets, burger and fries and spaghetti & meatballs. Sweet treats are cupcakes, doughnuts, gummy goodies and a chocolate bar maker.  

I think I'd like to try the mini burger and fries. Yummy Nummies are super cute and easy, and not terribly messier either. A big thumbs up from Michael and me! 

They're Coming this Summer! Ravensburger Minion 3D Jigsaw.

I haven't put together a jigsaw puzzle in years, and I've never attempted a 3D one, so this was a fun review to do.  

The Minions from the Despicable Me series have their own movie coming out this summer, so the shops are due to be swamped in yellow Tic Tac shaped fellows in blue overalls. In fact EVEN Tic Tacs are bringing out limited edition banana sweets in celebration of their lookalikes.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ravensburger-Shaped-Minion-Puzzle-54-Piece/dp/B00TN1ENY6

3D jigsaws come with numbered pieces which you put together in turn. It was a little fiddly but only took ten minutes for a puzzle this size. Would be a great present for a birthday boy or girl.