Pages

Showing posts with label kids toys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids toys. Show all posts

Thursday, April 1, 2010

One of A Kind Show

Yesterday Grandmama, papa, C Monster and I went to the One Of a Kind Show. It's running at the Exebition Center until the end of the weekend. This is one of my favorite places to shop and to get ideas from.

C Monster was a champ and listened very well to us all morning and afternoon (well until he passed out in my arms during a nursing break. For those of you with kids big or little the show is ready for you. First little ones get in free. They have a nursing room with lots of chairs and change tables; they also have a microwave for those of you that are bottle feeding.

For the kids 2 and up there is a complimentary child care center (you get 1 1/2 hours free) it's a first come first serve - keep that in mind. We talked about dropping C Monster off for a bit but I just could not bring myself to do - he was having lots of fun running around with his papa.

What did we get?
  • A Watch from Patina Canada for me.
  • Extra funky underwear for Geoff by the candi factory.
  • A wooden tractor for C Monster from Thorpe Toys. - let's talk about Thorpe for a second. I love their toys C Monster now has the tractor, the plane, the boat and the car. You can really only get their toys at shows (you can order them via email but the shipping is more then the toy) The plane was around 13$; the tractor 10$ and the one person car was under 5$, the boat was around 13$. The quality of the toys are fantastic - C Monster is pretty rough with his stuff and these are all surviving very well.
  • A Nugs for C Monster. - The gut selling them said they were extra solid as long as you stayed away from the ones with the long legs and arms. So far it survived many throws... lets see if it keeps up. These were just so cute and C Monster really loved them.
  • A modern and stylish tea cozy from Tenacious Life. - This is something we had been looking for, for what seems forever.
  • A Dragon puzzle for C Monster from Sleepy Hollow Creations. This is C Monster 3rd puzzle from Sleepy Hollow. They are mode from wood; and when I asked her about her paints she said they are all food grade. If I remember correctly the dragon was 24$ - the quality and hours of amusement C Monster gets from the puzzles make it money well spent.
  • For our sweet tooth we got honey and honeycomb from Honey Pie. I want to try to make honeycomb ice cream.
Worth a mention

We would of loved to buy everything we saw that we liked but at-last our pocket books and the environment can not handle that. So here are a few things we though about getting but did not - some of wish I did buy, but the good conscious consumer in me told me I did not need them.

  • L'Atelier du cheval de bois; he has some of the most beautiful hand crafted toys I have ever seen in made in Canada. We stared at them for a very long time but could not justify buying C Monster any of them as he already had tones of everything.
  • billy would designs; innovative and creative jewelry and accessories made from recycled and reclaimed wood. I so wanted the EarWings.
  • Stand Up; not only is this clothing company trying to make a difference in the world with donating a portion of each sale to help various causes world wide - they offer very fashionable funky designs for t-shirts. We both wanted one of their shirts but could not justify adding another t-shirt to our already overflowing dresser drawers.
If you live in Toronto you should definitely try to check out the show, I now actually try to wait till the show to buy stuff we need - I just finished going without a watch for 3 months because I wanted to see what would be at the show.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Non-Toxic & Eco-Friendly Toys Talk in Toronto

On Monday I gave a talk about non-toxic toys here in Toronto at Red Tent Sisters. For the talk I prepared a hand out that I though some of you would be interested in so here is a web version:

Manufacturers:

Exclusively make non-toxic toys

Automoblox - www.automoblox.com
Dwell Baby - www.dwellshop.com
Educo (HaPe) - www.hapetoys.com/Educo.asp
Rich Frog - www.richfrog.com
Selecta Spielzeug - http://www.selecta-spielzeug.de

Makes some non-toxic or eco friendly toys

Brio - http://brio.knex.com/
Djeco - http://www.djeco.com/
Goula
Heros - www.heros-toys.de
Haba - http://www.haba.de/Home.344.0.html
Melissa and Doug - www.melissaanddoug.com
Toys’r’us
Vulli - http://www.vulli-toys.com/

Exclusively make non-toxic eco friendly toys


Anamalz (HaPe) - www.hapetoys.com/Anamalz.asp
Bamboo (HaPe) - www.hapetoys.com/Bamboo.asp
Blabla - http://www.blablakids.com/
Didoodle - (Made in Canada) www.fidodle.com
Ecotronic - www.ecotronictoys.com/
Green Toys - http://www.greentoys.com/
Grimm’s Speil und Holz - http://www.grimms.eu/en/include.php?path=start.php
ImagiPLAY - www.imagiplay.com
Jalu Wood Creations - (Made in Canada) www.jalutoys.com
Keptin jr - http://www.keptin-jr.com/
Lana organics
miYim - http://www.miyim.com/index.html
Noonoo - http://www.noonoodesign.com/p73/playthings
North Star Toys - www.northstartoys.com
Peppa - www.babylonia
Plan Toys - www.plantoys.com
Sprig - www.sprigtoys.com
The Playful World -http://www.theplayfulworld.com/index.htm
Under the Nile - www.underthenile.com
Wonderworld - www.wonderworldtoy.com

Where to shop
The shops below consist of a list of my favorite stores in Toronto or on the web; there are many other store that carry non-toxic toys and eco toys; the list would be too long if I included them all. I do not work for any of these stores nor did I receive anything for mentioning them.

Internet Shopping

Ape 2 Zebra - www.ape2zebra.ca - great selection
Baby Guru - www.babyguru.ca - good selection
Bear Dance - http://www.beardancecrafts.com/creativeplay.htm - great selection of non-toxic toys
Cheeky Monkey - www.cheekymonkey.ca - good selection
Craftsbury Kids - www.craftsburykids.com - great selection
Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/index.php - great selection of hand made toys
Green Cricket - www.greencricket.ca - small selection but all are non-toxic and eco
Kai Kids - http://www.kaikids.com/ - small selection but all are eco friendly and non-toxic
Safety Super Store - http://www.babyproofingplus.com/ - good selection
Natural Pod - www.naturalpod.com - exclusively sells eco-friendly and non-toxic toys, great selection

In Person

Baby on the Hip, 969 Queen St. E., 416-465-4141 - small selection but al are non-toxic and eco-friendly - www.babyonthehip.ca
Craig’s List - great selection of second hand toys - www.craigslist.org
Grassroots, 372 Danforth Ave, 416-466-2841 - small selection but all are non-toxic and eco-friendly - http://www.grassrootsstore.com
Kids on the Hip, 1142 Queen St. E., 416-466-1117 - small selection but al are non-toxic and eco-friendly
Lapin Calin, 1918A Queen St. E., 416-690-1918 - small selection but al are non-toxic and/or eco-friendly - http://lapincalin.com/
Mastermind Beaches, 2134 Queen St. E, 416-699-3797 - good selection Toys “R” Us - limited selection - www.mastermindtoys.com
Planet Kid, 960 Queen St. W, 416-537-9233 - All toys are non-toxic and made in Canada - www.planetkid.ca
Scholars Choice, 1599 Bayview Ave., 416-485-8697 - good selection in store, great selection in catalogue - www.scholarschoice.ca
Ten Thousand Villages - www.tenthousandvillages.ca - small selection but all are eco friendly and fair trade
Treasure Island Toys, 581 Danforth Ave., 416-778-4913 - great selection & custom orders available
Value Village, 924 Queen Street E., 416-778-4818 & 2119 Danforth Ave., (416) 698-0621 - great selection of second hand toys
Paint Depot, 914 Queen St. E, 416-469-5633 - carries lead paint test kits - http://www.paintdepot.com/

Just because it’s for kids it does not mean it’s safe in many toys available on the Canadian market you can find one or multiple of these:
Lead Bromine ( Fire retardant) Chlorine (PVC) & Phthalates Cadmium Arsenic Mercury Antimony Chromium Tin Bisphenol A


Internet Resources

www.healthytoys.org - Online database of toys tested for various chemicals
http://www.ewg.org - Environmental Working Group has been at the forefront of many actions to ban various chemicals in the US
http://www.greenenterprise.net/web/index.php - Online database of green enterprise in the Toronto area
http://www.greenmom.ca/index.shtml - Tones of resources for raising your child green, Green Mom also has a trade show once a year in Toronto.
http://healthychild.org/main/
http://www.healthycanadians.ca/index_e.html - Canadian recalls
http://www.cpsc.gov/index.html - USA recalls
http://europa.eu/rapid/searchAction.do - European recalls
http://www.recalls.gov.au/ - Australian recalls
http://www.toysafetyrecalls.ca/ - List of recalls from around the world

Sunday, April 27, 2008

UPDATED - Looking for good deals

I love buying things second hand or gently used as I like to say. You save money and you stop things from ending up in the our landfills. On top of all the second hand stores in Toronto a great way to get good finds are Mom to Mom Sales. For anyone that is not familiar with Mom to Mom Sales they are like huge yard sales with multiple sellers and only baby and kid items.

Here are a few of the up-coming ones in the GTA. If anyone knows about any other sales please feel free to post them in the comments.

May 4 - Children Pillage in the Village I have never been to this one however once I have checked it out this year will let you know what I think.

May 31 - Greenmom Spring Market
- Seem like a great place to get all the new eco-friendly gear for your wee one

June 14 - Markham - Always a good one arrive early