The World of David Walliams Gangsta Granny Stash the Swag Board Game – Review & Giveaway

Posted on March 5, 2019 by Fiona Martin

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The World of David Walliams Gangsta Granny Stash the Swag Board Game from Paul Lamond Games is a fantastic game for fans of David Walliams books and that includes my two children who read each new title as it is released. With World Book Day on the 7th March this year it’s a fantastic time to get reading and being able to play a game associated with a book is always a lot of fun and helps bring your favourite characters to life. With Gangsta Granny among my children’s book collection they were excited by the prospect of a board game featuring team Granny & Ben on a mission to stash the Crown Jewels without being caught by the Queen.

The Gangsta Granny board game is presented in a fantastic tin which a great way to store the parts ensuring they last making it a durable game to play over and over again.

In the tin you will find:

Game board
4 Granny & Ben play pieces
1 Queen play piece
24 Jewel tokens
2 Dice

The aim of the game is to collect all the letter ‘jewels’ to spell out the word GANGSTA but watch out because the Queen is on the prowl and if you get caught by the Queen before stashing your jewels, they all have to be returned!

Each player moves by rolling both dice and moving the number on the white one themselves and the number on the black one for the Queen, therefore with everyone moving the Queen ahead each time she gets around the board quite quickly chasing everyone for their jewels. When you do catch a jewel of your colour you can stash it in your player’s piece until you pass the swag bag and can put it safely on the appropriate letter in the word Gangsta.

We found this Gangsta Granny Stash the Swag game fun and something that all the family enjoyed. With four of us this game was perfect although can be played with between 2-4 players at a time. Suitable for ages 7+ meant that this was perfect for all of us as my youngest is 8 and he really enjoyed this and particularly got excited as the Queen chased us all around the board and loved crossing the board using the secret passageways. We found game play to last around an hour as although it seems easy enough to collect your Gangsta jewels, the Queen is always hot on your heels to steal them!

When someone does manage to collect all of the jewels and spell out the word ‘Gangsta’ they become the winner of game!

If you’d like the chance to win a copy of the board game Gangsta Granny Stash the Swag from Paul Lamond games then just complete the Gleam widget below:

Gangsta Granny board game

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.

Yvolution Y Flyer Scooter – Review

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Fiona Martin

When the Yvolution Y Flyer Scooter dropped on our doorstep there has been nothing but excitement and eagerness to get outside in the cold breeze and ride away like it’s second nature, not that the Y Flyer is your regular scooter. Far from it, this is a beast of a scooter, it is huge but fair enough as it’s aimed at 7-12 year olds and just looking at it you can see it’s substantial, well built and durable.

yvolution-y-flyer-scooter The scooter comes boxed and requires minimal assembly to put it together, which took only 5 minutes to do. It is then ready to use and the handle can be folded down for storage purposes.

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It was then time to give it a try. It works with a unique forward propelling motion that is operated by pushing the foot plates up and down. It has a chain which I was quite surprised by and a handbrake making it easy to stop as you can pick up some speed with the Y Flyer. The scooter has a steel frame that is quite heavy but that does make it sturdy. It does take a bit of getting used to as it’s different, but my soon to be 9yr old took to it straightaway. She’s very sporty and loves being outdoors so this was a good challenge for her to try out but one that she loved and enjoyed.
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So what did we think?

Well I can only say that we loved it because we did. It is amazing, a head turner, incredibly well built and something Miss M absolutely adored and has had a lot of fun with. It’s great for exercise as it makes you work, but the feeling of ‘flying’ down the road is exhilarating and worth the effort. Whilst out and about in our local streets trying out the scooter, we did get a lot of admirers and people were intrigued as to what Miss M was riding – the Y Flyer from Yvolution will certainly get you noticed and why not? It’s a clever, unique and different way to travel that we’d throughly recommend!

Here is a short clip of Miss M in action on the Yvolution Y Flyer scooter:

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

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Having Fun with Nick Jr Ready Steady Dough

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Fiona Martin

My children have always liked playing with dough, they love the feel of it between their fingers and quite frankly just love the idea of cutting, moulding, rolling and basically being creative as they like with it. So they were excited when they found out that we would be trying out some of the new sets from Addo Play, which are available to purchase from The Entertainer toy shop.

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The children were delighted to spend an evening after school last week in Ready Steady Dough heaven with a multitude of colours and tools at their disposal which kept them occupied for several hours. They had plungers, shape cutters, a rolling pin, moulds and a rather cool squeezy machine.

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The Squeezy Shape Station was a big hit, having lots of different shapes through which you can squeeze your dough by pressing down the large easy to press lever. It had them in giggles at first seeing large spaghetti like shapes oozing out of the machine which gave them new textures to squidge and press together between their fingers rather than a large lump of dough.

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Also included in this set and the Lots of Pots set are a couple of plungers so we had four different ones in total which work on a similar basis for smaller amounts of dough at a time. They loved watching it come out the other side, such a simple thing but fascinating for them as they saw the dough transform which they could use to be creative with or squidge back together.

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5yr old Mister B soon got into the flow of things and was making himself special super power bracelets as well as other crazy things as his imagination flowed.

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Miss M squeezed out a big thick line of white dough which she turned into the number eight, to represent her age. Meanwhile Mister B had made his own dinner – a pot of purple pasta!

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Miss M then made some thinner strands with the Squeezy Shape Station which she used to practise her plaits. It wasn’t long before she came up with her own unique creation which she was really proud off.

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As you can see both children thoroughly enjoyed their evening of dough fun and will have much enjoyment with it again in the future. These sets are good fun, great value and have hours of entertainment in them as they can be used time and time again. Why not check out the Nick Jr Ready Steady Dough range available from The Entertainer right now? Some great Christmas and Birthday ideas!!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review. honest review.

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Read and Play Dinosaur Activity Pack – Review

Posted on September 22, 2016 by Fiona Martin

The Read and Play Dinosaur Activity Pack from Miles Kelly has been a huge hit here with 5yr old Mister B. It really is packed full of activities that have fully engaged him and he has returned to the pack time after time.

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The box opens out to reveal a pile of contents including a story book, an activity book, a puzzle and two precut sheets of accessories. What’s really clever about this box is that the flaps and the inside all contain things to do which you’ll see further down the review, but also the box is a great place to store everything at the end of play.

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We started reading the story book ‘Rex gets a Scare’ which is perfect for young children with full colour pages and lots to look at which also keeps my 5yr old entertained as he likes to tell me everything that he sees going on through the pictures. The story follows Rex, a large green dinosaur who shouldn’t be scared of anything but finds he gets scared by flowers and bees. He has lots of dinosaur friends around him though to support along the way.

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The activity book is packed full of puzzles and games that my little boy loved from mazes, dot to dot, spot the difference and even a fun ‘Scramble and Slide’ game that he loves to play.

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The box itself opens up to become a dinosaur play scene. There are some press out sheets to create dinosaur models of Rex and his friends which we sat and made together. My little boy could then play with his model dinosaurs on the play scene which he really enjoyed. miles-kelly-dinosaur-7

The flaps of the box fold over to reveal a couple of board games, ludo and draughts. The counters for these can be popped out of one of the pre cut sheets and my little boy loved the dinosaur discs. Prior to this my little boy wasn’t aware of the rules of draughts but it is now a game he enjoys and happily plays.

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One of his favourite parts of this set was the puzzle. I think because it was round it had extra appeal, but it is also a really good thickness that will last unlike a lot of puzzles in book sets like this.

Overall I think that the Read and Play Dinosaur set is excellent and has been thoroughly enjoyed here along with being packed with good quality pieces that have been well thought out and are perfect for young dinosaur fans.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

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Disney Frozen Race to the Palace Board Game

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Fiona Martin

Disney Frozen Race to the Palace board game from Ravensburger is aimed at 5yrs plus and can be played by 2-4 players. Initially it appears a fairly simple game of climbing places to reach the palace, but it has an interesting combination of three dice and the fact that you don’t just move your own player makes it more complex.

Frozen race to the palace x Inside the box are three pieces that join together to create the playing board, along with a large card that stands up to be the Arendelle palace and five figure cut outs with stands, four tokens and three dice.

The game is easily assembled and then play can commence. The characters used in this game are Elsa, Anna, Kristoff and Olaf. There is also Hans although no one own’s him and the aim of the game is to race him to the castle. If he gets there first then he wins, but if another character get’s there first then they win.

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The game starts by each playing selecting a token, they take a look but don’t reveal which character they are playing. You then take turn to roll the dice. You will roll either two colours and a number or one number and two colours. The colour tells you how many spaces to move and the colour determines which character or characters you move. If you roll a white you can pick any character of your choice, which is where tactics come into play and you obviously want to choose the character that’s on your token.

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There is also a space on the board with friendly trolls that allows you to jump ahead two spaces and a giant snow creature which sends you back one space. When a character reaches the castle, it is declared the winner and players can then reveal which character’s token they had.

My children both loved this game, particularly 5yr old Mister B who quickly grasped the game rules, which I think was great and he got really excited during gameplay. I think he was the perfect age for this although he does have a good understanding of things generally.

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This is a really fun game that we’ve all enjoyed and has been well thought out. I thought each game would only last about 5 minutes but we found it lasted a good 15 minutes and all the family joined in.

Disney Frozen Race to the Palace Board Game is a must for any Frozen fan who will love playing with all the familiar characters from the film, it’s also a game we have been playing most days which is great and shows it has long lasting appeal.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

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Kinetic Sand Bakery Boutique Patisserie – Review

Posted on June 10, 2016 by Fiona Martin

Kinetic Sand Bakery Boutique Patisserie from Spin Master is a sand making delight where you can create your own bakery items out of moulded sand and display them in the cleverly designed box that opens out into a bakery window display.

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The kit contains everything you need, including two bags of brightly coloured sand, a selection of moulds and some cardboard pieces to add to the lid of your box and create your bakery display. The box is simple to assemble providing shelves to put your creations on and a centrepiece in the middle for a showstopper cake!

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The children couldn’t wait to get stuck into the sand as the texture is really quite therapeutic between your fingers, and being non sticky it’s a pleasure to work with. The moulds are quite easy to operate, you just need to pack them tightly, give them a few taps and they do produce some really precisely moulded shapes. There are also two press out cutters which work really well once you get used to them. You need to hold the plunger up as you press down and then lift the shape out.

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As you can see below, the children’s creations kept coming and they quite quickly filled the shelves with their cakes. They enjoyed trying to make each one different and see what different combinations they could come up with. The cakes held together quite well and as long as you don’t touch them too much they will stay as they are until you break them up again.

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I think the finished bakery display looks great and the children were certainly proud of their efforts. I think having a backdrop to put their items on really made a difference and added to the play value.

kinetic sand bakery 5 What’s great about this kinetic sand is that once you made something, you can break it up again and start again, which makes this playset great value for money as I know it is something my children will come back to again and again!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the product in order to write an honest review.

John Adams Sands Alive Play Sets – Review

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Fiona Martin

Sands Alive play sets from John Adams are a delight to young children who love sand, enjoy using their hands to be creative and like having fun making things. My two children were excited about the idea of playing with sand indoors and I found these sets to be quite well contained and easy to clean up.

We received the Classic and Animal set to try out. They both come with a tray to play in, a bag of sand and various moulds to shape the sand with.

Both children sat quietly playing, enjoying the texture of the soft sand through their fingers. It’s a great product that’s non sticky, really soft, making it great for kids of any age to play with.

Mister B loved the paw tracks roller which led to lots of imaginative play with some of his figure toys over the animal prints. What is quite amazing is how well defined the sand is one you stamp it or mould it. The edges are really smooth and clear to see. The shapes are easy to press out of the moulds with a few light taps.

Miss M was very proud of the sand ball that she made and it did look quite impressive. The animals were good although a little tricky for younger ones to get out of the mould easily, but we are practising and they are getting better as we get to grips with the moulds. We also made lots of towers for the animals to live in.

The children really enjoy playing with Sands Alive, it’s creative fun that they can play with in the house. We just used an art mat underneath and found it simple to hoover up any excess. I think these are great play sets for children, ideal gifts and something they will enjoy time and time again. A different, new texture that is great to explore!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the sets in order to write an honest review.

Schleich Dragon Island Figures – Review

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Fiona Martin

Schleich dragons from the Dragon Island series are a great set of mythical figurines that are of the familiar high quality I’ve come to love and know with Schleich. Each figure is intricately detailed and hand painted to give it an impressive look that draws children into an imaginative world of play.

There are six dragons in the series:

Dragon Flyer
Dragon Hunter
Dragon Fighter
Dragon Warrior
Dragon Runner
Dragon Battering Ram

We received Dragon Fighter and Dragon Runner shown above, and I have to say they were larger than expected with dimensions being up to 20cm across. This makes them great for play and my little boy loved holding them and fighting them against each other.

They really bring out my little boys imagination and you can hear him talking about their features and how they are going to fight as they go into battle against each other. The detail really is fantastic on these and you can’t see any joins in the body. They seem very durable as the plastic isn’t solid, it has a slightly flexibleness to it which allows for a bit of rough play.

We love these dragons from Schleich and think they’ll be very popular with young children especially if they are into figure toys. Schleich have a huge range of figurines available in all sorts of ranges. I’ve just spotted the new Peanuts range that has been launched so there really is something for everyone!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the dragons in order to write the review.

Barbie Spin ‘N Ride Pups – Review

Posted on July 16, 2015 by Fiona Martin

Barbie Spin ‘N Ride Pups is a fun new Barbie playset available from Smyths featuring Barbie and her two dogs. Barbie rides a bike and the dogs ride along side on skateboards.

This is a fun playset with simple well built pieces that easily fit together for play. Barbie can ride her bike alone, or you can attach one or both of the skateboards for play. There are two dogs included, a big and small one each with appropriately sized skateboards which they simply attach to.

Barbie has a removal floral vest top, although her trousers are moulded on due to the way her legs are required to move on the bicycle. Her boots are removal and she does have normal Barbie size feet underneath, so she can easily be dressed in other outfits you may have. Miss M loved that Barbie has a removal bike helmet almost identical to her own. She has long blonde hair which Miss M tied back in a ponytail to make it easier to put the helmet on.

The fun part about this Barbie toy is that Barbie actually cycles along as you push the bike. Her feet clip into the pedals and her hands push through the handles on the handlebar enabling her to stay in place and move like she is really cycling. As she moves the biggest dog nearer her moves along too and the cute little puppy on the small skateboard actually spins a full 360 degrees around the bigger dog. You do need to try this on different floorings to get the best effect and movement for the small skateboard.

Miss M has a lots of fun playing with this Barbie, she loves the idea of her on a bike, being a keen cyclist herself! With a bit of imagination you can take Barbie on all sorts of journeys with this toy and she easily fits in with other Barbie toys and can bring her dogs along to share the fun!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and we received the Barbie in order to write the review.

Little Live Pets Butterfly Jungle Fashion – Review

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Fiona Martin

Little Live Pets Butterfly Jungle Fashion is one of the new Series 2 range of butterflies from Character Options, a collection of butterflies that magically come alive and flutter their pretty wings in your hand. They come in a choice of six designs:

Jungle Fashion
Frozen Iceland
Precious Paris
Tropical Beauty
Cherry Blossom
Precious Wings

The Little Live Pets Butterfly Jungle Fashion has a brightly coloured body and wings that immediately appealed to 7yr old Miss M, and she couldn’t wait to get the butterfly out to play.

The butterfly comes with a base, a suction window holder and requires 2 AA batteries for the base. The base is a solid sturdy piece that the butterfly happily sits on and “feeds”. Once the butterfly has fed, you can place it in your hands and watch it flutter. The more you feed and play with your butterfly, the longer and smoother the sequence of flutters will be on your hand.

Both my children have become really attached to this butterfly which I wasn’t expecting but after school each day, they make sure they let the butterfly feed then have a flutter in their hands. It has become like a little pet for them that they take turns in interacting with. I think the bright, attractive design helps as my daughter tried one last year but wasn’t so keen.

I think this is a great little interactive toy that encourages children to look after something. I’ve ensured they are gentle with it so as not to crush it’s wings and taught them how to handle it with care.

The Little Live Pets Butterfly Jungle Fashion has been a hit with us and Miss M likes to put the butterfly in the sucker holder on her bedroom window at night. I think if your child enjoys this then they are pretty good value for money.

Overall a cute little interactive toy that’s well made and is fun for children!

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and the butterfly was sent to us in order to write the review.