Toys R US

Chuggington Party Ideas - Guest Blogger Lisa Kothari

LauraM — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:05:16 +0000

Do your preschoolers love the show Chuggington? New in the United States, young children are quickly falling in love with these train engines called Chuggers. The show follows the adventures of three main characters: Wilson, Brewster, and Koko. Set in the modern world, the colors and animation graphics are truly stellar and pop off the screen. It’s set to become very popular and is a perfect train party theme that includes these lovable chugger characters.

For your Chuggington Party Invitation:  Using bright square pieces of card stock, print off pictures from the Chuggington website, and glue to the front of the card. Inside or on the reverse side, write all of your party details.

For your party decorations, be inspired by the bright and bold colors used in Chuggington: stoplight red, lime green, bright blue, and canary yellow as the perfect choices for your party colors. You can purchase balloons, streamers, and tableware in these bright, bold solid colors as the basis of your party decorations.

Create Chuggington Train Tracks leading to the front door of the party. At the front door create and hang a sign that says “Let’s Ride the Rails of this Party!”

Make sure to have the Chuggington theme song playing in the background as the kids arrive.

For your Chuggington Activities:  

Chuggington is about exploring, discovering, and teaching positive life lessons — such as listening closely to directions. Create party activities that allow your guests to explore and discover the Chuggington Party area.
When the children arrive, ask them which Chugger they want to be, and face paint a little Chugger on their face.
As the kids wait for everyone to arrive, provide them with craft materials and brown paper bags to create their own Chuggington paper bag puppet. The kids can take these home as a party favor.
Give the kids a series of directions that they must listen carefully to and follow.
Play Load a Chugger. Have train toys available for loading up of rocks, sticks, twigs, dirt, and any other “natural” items you have around your yard. If inside, have the kids load up small toys like marbles, jacks, small balls, etc. Create a relay race by dividing the kids into two teams and having them carry their loads back and forth from one end to the other. The first team to load/unload and finish the race wins. However, everyone can win if it’s just for fun.
Play Brewster May I? like Mother May I?
Play Chuggington Chairs like Musical Chairs. Make sure to use the show’s music during this game.

For your Chuggington Party Menu:

Purchase a train cookie cutter and cut out sandwiches, gelatin, and brownie train shapes for the kids to enjoy together.
Serve a Chuggington Fruit salad with grapes, kiwis, berries, apples and any other brightly colored fruits.
Serve Chuggington Mocktails. Use a favorite flavor of Kool Aid or juice and place skewers of fruits inside each drink for additional edible decoration.

Send the party Chuggers home with their Chuggington puppets, boxes of crayons, and small train goodies, i.e. train chocolates, keychain, coloring pages, etc.

Have a Chugger Good Time!

--Lisa Kothari

Peppers and Pollywogs, Inc.

www.pepperspollywogs

Operation - Flash Back Friday

LauraM — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:52:16 +0000

Everyone knows the game Operation. But do you know the patient's name? It's Cavity Sam! Here's some more about the game from wikipedia:

Operation is a battery-operated game of physical skill that tests players' hand-eye co-ordination. Made by Milton Bradley, it has been in production since 1965, the year in which the game was invented by John Spinello.

The game is a variant on the old-fashioned wire loop electric game popular at fun-fairs and the flammer stores around the United States. It consists of an "operating table", lithographed with a comic likeness of a patient (nicknamed "Cavity Sam") with a large, red light-bulb for his nose. In the surface are a number of openings, which reveal fictional and humorously-named ailments made of white plastic, and more recently green rubber.

We carry a few different versions of the game:

How about a commercial break?

And another (I think Joey Lawrence is in this one!):

And you have to check out this guy's Halloween costume!

Ahhh that's just good family fun! Have a great weekend!

--Laura M.

Mad Men Barbie Dolls - We Saw This One a Mile Away

LauraM — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:37:33 +0000

Back a few months ago we here at Toy Whimsy were lamenting the fact that there were no Mad Men Action Figures. Someone must have heard our cries of anguish - and that someone must have been Barbie herself. In the New York Times today, there comes news of a Mad Men/Barbie agreement to be part of the publicity behind the new season.

Soon, the show will enter a realm of the pop-culture pantheon that its creator, Matthew Weiner, says has surprised even him: Mattel plans to bring out versions of Barbie and Ken styled after four “Mad Men” characters.

The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection. Although there have been Barbies and Kens based on other TV series, among them “I Love Lucy” and “The X-Files,” the dolls will be the first licensed line for that collection, Mattel says, with a suggested retail price of $74.95 each.

Mattel is licensing rights to the characters from Lionsgate, the studio that produces “Mad Men” for the AMC cable channel. There will be 7,000 to 10,000 copies of each doll, to be sold in specialty stores and on two Web sites, amctv.com and barbiecollector.com.

The characters to become dolls are Don Draper, the show’s leading man; his wife, Betty; his colleague at the Sterling Cooper agency, Roger Sterling; and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager who was Roger’s mistress.

Here's a little sneak peek at the dolls:

My birthday is in July. I see a set of these for my desk in my future!

This partnership shouldn't be too much of a surprise seeing the success Barbie is having with the Twilight series. So what is next? I'd love to see some True Blood Barbies. What pop culture Barbies would you like to see? Leave us a comment!

--Laura M.

Bella Sara Birthday Party Ideas - Guest Blogger Lisa Kothari

LauraM — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:44:33 +0000

The world of Bella Sara, published by Hidden City Games, is an exciting, popular on-line game for girls everywhere caring for horses. Back in the 70s, we had figurine horses with long hair that we could brush and style and play with. Bella Sara is playing with horses new millennium style and it’s popular! Starting with simple trading cards, girls outfit their cottage rooms with items that they purchase in the Bazaar, using horseshoes to make the purchases. Little girls love caring for their horses and outfitting them as well. The creator of Bella Sara, Gitte Odder Brændgaard, is particularly interested in providing positive messages on each card as well.

With such a popular game, it would be a lot of fun to create a Bella Sara Birthday Party. Using the game and its positive messages for inspiration, you can create a fun, creative party for your favorite birthday girl.

Check out these ideas:

For your party invitation, purchase a few packs of Bella Sara Cards, e.g. enough to provide one to each of your guests. Take purple or pink heavy card stock, and cut it down to the size of your Bella Sara cards. Write all of your party details on the card stock, and using glue, paste the Bella Sara card to the front of your invitation. Request that your guests bring along their party invitation to the party so they can use their trading card at the party. These invitations can either be hand-delivered or sent regular mail.

The decorations can be any color scheme that appeals to the birthday girl. Pink and purple solid tableware, balloons, streamers, and confetti would make a good choice. Choosing solid colored patterns will be budget friendly. On the party table, make sure to scatter markers around and the guests can write positive messages on their cups and napkins and/or pictures of their horses.

Once at the party, as an opening activity, have the guests create their own Bella Sara names, and personalized trading cards. Make sure to have art supplies readily available for these creations. After everyone has finished, ask the guests to state the name they chose and why. Award prizes for Most Creative Name, Longest Name, Shortest Name, etc. Make sure everyone receives a prize.

Just like each Bella Sara card comes with a positive message, have the guests create their own positive messages and have them share them with each other. Alternatively, or in addition, create different positive messages and place them into a hat. Have the guests each pick one and describe what it means to them.

Horseshoes represent the capacity to purchase stuff to take care of the horses. Have a Horseshoe Hunt where the guests must find as many horseshoes as they can around the party area and yard. Real horseshoe credits would be an excellent prize and special prize for the winner.

Of course, the guests may want to get on-line and play with their horses. Make sure to have capacity for this, e.g. if you have more than one computer available, make sure that you have them set to play. A majority of the party will be taken with playing the game together.

As a party favor, send the guests home with new packs of Bella Sara trading cards and their own Bella Sara cards that they created.

--Lisa Kothari

Peppers and Pollywogs, Inc.

www.pepperspollywogs

Magnetic!

Eddie Moore — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:49:41 +0000

Sometimes the simplest toys are the most popular...and, sometimes, they aren't really "toys" at all. Case in point: magnets. Magnets have been always been fun to play with but, this year, magnets seem to be making a comeback. For example, Buckyballs are small magnetic spheres which can be used to build various 3D shapes. Simple, yet highly addictive...and very popular. (We saw a few knockoffs of it at Toy Fair in New York this year.)

Another popular magnetic toy is Magna-Tiles. Magna-Tiles are multi-colored plastic tiles with magnetic edges that allow kids to build all kinds of structures. (It also comes in a both solid and translucent versions.) They can also be used to help kids understand shapes, basic geometry and basic physics as well.

There are lots of other magnetic toys out there (including puzzles, games, and more) at a variety of price points. But, the end result is the same -- magnetic toys will be "sticking around" for many years to come. -- E. Christian Moore