Itty Bittys are a new range of collectible plush toys from Hallmark. Arriving in the UK in October 2015, they have already been a huge success in both America and Australia, selling out in some of the popular models. Itty Bittys are based on popular tv and film characters that will be familiar to all, allowing you to choose your favourites to collect. I believe these will appeal to all ages from children to adults and the UK will soon see people collecting them as they are in other parts of the world.
First of all, I have to refer to the name Itty Bittys. They are so called this due to their size being just 4 inches tall, small but such a cute size and of a shape that’s perfect to hold in your hand. The quality of these is excellent and they are well made with a good amount of detail. They have beans in the body of the character making them tactile to hold and also it means that they can stand up! This really adds to the cuteness of them and a collection of these on your shelf would look great.
So onto the characters, there are lots of series of different ones, of which I received a selection. One of the first characters that will be launching in the UK is Batman and I have to say he doesn’t disappoint – he is super cute!! He forms part of the Superhero series which you can see below also contains Superman and Wonder Woman.
There are numerous other series including Wizard of Oz, from which you can see the Lion below, Peanuts which includes Snoopy and Santa from the Rudolph range. Other series include Disney Princesses, Frozen, Star Wars, Marvel, Muppets and much more
I actually love these Itty Bittys much more than I expected too, as do my children who have been battling out which ones they each want!! They are cute, soft, small and make a great collectible, stocking filler, small gift etc.
I have a set of Itty Bittys up for grabs for one of my readers containing a selection (may vary from my selection above) similar to the ones I received. Retailing at around £6 each, the lucky winner will receive an Itty Bitty bundle as soon as they are launched!
Just fill in the Gleam widget below for your chance to win.
With the new school term starting in September we all need to start thinking about back to school essentials. With my son Mister B starting school for the first time he is rather nervous and unsure as to things ahead so I think it’s nice to do things to make him feel more comfortable and a bit more grown up now that he will be a school boy.
He’s a bit superhero fan so I think these Batman accessories will be great to give him encouragement to try his best at school.
The Batman duvet cover is the perfect accessory for his bedroom to encourage him to have an early night before school. Hopefully he’ll want to go to bed rather than try to stay up! This is a fabulous duvet cover with a full size batman on one side, with the Batman’s head being on the pillow. This means that when Mister B is in bed it’ll look like he’s got Batman’s body. I love that this cover is double sized with the reverse having lots of smaller flying Batman’s as per the one on the bottom right of the picture .
The notepad and pencil case are both great quality. The pencil is ideal for putting just a couple of pens or pencils in to take to school in his book bag. The note pad is hardback and spiral bound. I like these pads for young children as they don’t need anything else to lean on, and the spirals mean the pages stay open. This will be great for Mister B to practise his writing in.
Scentos are an exciting new range of kids stationery in which every item is scented! Miss M who is 7 fell in love with this instantly. She couldn’t wait to get stuck in writing a letter for mummy and making Nanny a birthday card with these.
The set is comprehensive and contains over 75 scented pieces all flavoured with fruity scents including blueberry, watermelon, grape, apple, orange and strawberry. With the set consisting of pens, pencils, erasers, markers, paints etc there really is a great choice. The highlight for Miss M was the two large size chunky markers that really captured her attention and the first she chose to use. I also like this set because it contains 18 pieces of fruity designed paper and stickers which really add to the set and mean a child can use it all right away!
I envisage this set coming out when we have homework to do that involves drawing and craft and also other craft activities at home. It certainly helps a child to be creative and I’m sure Miss M will pick a few pieces to add to her school pencil case and love showing her friends the different scents of the pencils and erasers!
Everyone needs a water bottle be it at school or at work and I have to say that this new Fill and Go Filter Water Bottle from Brita is perfect. Although initially I was going to let Miss M try this in preparation for back to school, although after seeing it, I decided it is just the thing for my desk at work. I’m not keen on tap water so prefer either bottled or filtered and this is perfect for on the go. It is a refillable water bottle in which you insert a mini filter, and this filters the water as you drink it.
The bottle is slimline and stylish, I like the clear outer to the bottle. It holds a total of 600ml and has been designed to fit into cup holders. There is an included straw which can be removed if you wish to use as a tip up bottle.
The filters are recommended to be changed weekly and refills can be purchased although four are included with the purchase of the bottle. I’m really loving this bottle and think its a great idea, and will appeal to people whether at school, college, work, gym or just out and about for the day.
Suckies fromt The Collective Dairy are a gourmet yoghurt brand that as well as selling tubs of yoghurt, have produced a range of live yoghurt pouches for children. The fresh yoghurt contains no nasties, no colours, no artificial flavourings, no preservatives or pips and bits! It comes in a choice of four flavours, Sassy Strawberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, Peach & Apricot.
They come in 100g pouches and are designed for children of all ages, which means they are ideal for pack lunches and days out. A top tip is to put these into the freezer so that by lunchtime at school the children have a cold yoghurt to eat rather than one that has gone a bit warm. They have a screw top which I like as I know my children struggle with the tear across pouches, and it also means if they don’t want it all they can save a bit for later and replace the lid.
So what did my children think of them? Well they loved them! In fact Miss M’s first words after drinking one was, “that was amazing, can I have another one please?”. They particularly love the strawberry flavour as that has always been their favourite yoghurt flavour, but equally they loved the others and would be happy to drink any flavour again.
One thing I dread when the children are due back at school is the slip of paper that comes home on a regular basis warning me that a case of head lice has been found in the class and to be extra vigilant in checking my child’s hair. This Protect & Go spray from Hedrin is the perfect solution.
This spray is great for my children as they hate the traditional head lice lotions and don’t enjoy me combing through their hair looking for lice. With this spray you can use on either wet or dry hair at least twice a week to help prevent head lice. The spray will disrupt the life cycle of lice and prevent infestations. It has an orange and mango scent which although quite strong is pleasant and giving the kids a spray after shampooing is easy to do. I’ll be using this week from the start of term in hope that we don’t see the dreaded lice this year. I think for such an easy to use preventative it’s worth doing and saves any hassle in the long run.
All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the items in order to write the review.
DC Super Friends are very popular with my little boy, so with Bantam releasing a range of activity and first reader books I knew he’d be excited. With all his favourite characters such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and others, these books follow the super friends on adventures of fighting crime and saving the day!
The first readers are aimed at 5-7 year olds, so 6 year old Miss M was keen to have read. She kindly read them to her younger brother and he eagerly viewed the pictures and enjoyed the story. These are perfect for her age to read with large text that is simple but interspersed with a few trickier words that she managed well.
Crime Wave is about a baddie, Black Manta, who plans to steal the world’s largest pearl, but fortunately the DC Super Friends are there to stop him escaping with the pearl and catch the criminal in action. This is a typical super hero type of story, one that little ones love and that Mister B has listened to over and over.
Hero Havoc follows Bizarro, a wannabe super hero who tries his hardest to have the same special powers as the others, but it always results in the opposite thing happening, therefore he never quite achieves what he sets out to do. He goes off to find Superman who is being held by Lex Luthor and it’s Bizarro that manages to set him free, finally making him happy and feeling worthy of being a hero.
Both these DC Super Friends books have been enjoyed by my children, with Miss M reading them herself and Mister B listening to them. These are firm favourites that I can definitely recommend. The full colour picture pages help bring the stories to life with lots of recognisable characters that little ones will love!
There are also a couple of activity books available, a wipe clean book which is great for practising pen control, something Mister B is just getting to grips with so this book has been great for him to write, draw, match etc. using his favourite super friends to guide him. The DC Super Friends sticker book has 4 pages of stickers to use on pages within the book as well as other activities such as mazes, counting activities, find the odd one out etc. The stickers proved a big hit with Mister B as I’m sure they will with any young super hero fan.
We love the DC Super Friend’s range of books and like that they cover both fiction and activity books. We’ve really enjoyed them and found them a bit different to any other books we’ve had or seen.
Why not check out these and more in the range from Bantam books?
All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the books in order to write the review.
My children love magazines and are always lured by the toys on the front cover so when we received the brand new DC Super Friends magazine their eyes lit up eager to see what was inside. DC Super Friends is all about the world’s superheroes such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash and many more along side their baddies. The magazine is primarily aimed at young boys between 2-5 years old and every issue comes with a free toy.
The first issue comes with two communicators with switching screens which you can turn over to show different characters. Mister B was immediately drawn to these and couldn’t wait to pretend talking into them and spent the rest of the day carrying it around.
The DC Super Friends magazine is full of activities including a story, colouring in, observational puzzles, spot the difference, code puzzles and much more. There is also a making section to create a Batman mask and Batmobile by cutting and sticking onto card – great for little ones that love to make – I know my children do.
I think this magazine contains a great variety of activities for little ones to do, inspiring their imagination and lots of quick fire questions and observations to keep them alert and thinking about things. Mister B was fascinated by all the super heroes, Batman being his favourite the moment. He loved spotting Batman’s logo as we went though the magazine and asked me what others were that he didn’t already know. He also liked the page discussing colours and he went through each superheroes outfit telling me what the colours were.
Overall I think this is a lovely magazine for young boys, although at the younger age they will require supervision to complete this, but for me it is a nice activity for me to sit down and help Mister B with.
There’s also a couple of competitions included which you can get involved in to win superhero prizes so if you fancy trying a copy with your children when the DC Super Friends magazine goes on sale in the UK on the 19th September 2013 which you can find in supermarkets and newsagents.
Good discounts are available for subscribers, details of which can be found at www.titanmagazines.com/superfriends and within the magazine itself.
All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.
First of all, I have to refer to the name Itty Bittys. They are so called this due to their size being just 4 inches tall, small but such a cute size and of a shape that’s perfect to hold in your hand. The quality of these is excellent and they are well made with a good amount of detail. They have beans in the body of the character making them tactile to hold and also it means that they can stand up! This really adds to the cuteness of them and a collection of these on your shelf would look great.
There are numerous other series including Wizard of Oz, from which you can see the Lion below, Peanuts which includes Snoopy and Santa from the Rudolph range. Other series include Disney Princesses, Frozen, Star Wars, Marvel, Muppets and much more
I actually love these Itty Bittys much more than I expected too, as do my children who have been battling out which ones they each want!! They are cute, soft, small and make a great collectible, stocking filler, small gift etc.
