Wow Woodworking Presents for Boys this Christmas at Ptolemy Toys

Make this year an old fashioned Christmas with gifts that help your children adopt the “make do and mend “skills we are all rekindling in today’s tougher times.

Learning traditional skills somewhat assigned to the past by today’s gadget mad generation is back on trend so what better than woodworking kit projects from Ptolemy Toys this Christmas.

Fun projects that can be made at home with some support from a handy Dad or Mum,  from age 8 upwards.  Everything you need is pre-cut and included in the kits so just follow the instructions and you’ll end up with a working toy or game that you can be proudly say was “made in the UK”!

Get ready for action with some of our favourites, the Go-Kart Kit for boys who feel the need for speed or for those who enjoy a slower pace of life the snooker table kit will keep the boys entertained for hours on rainy days during the Christmas holidays.

Nature lovers will enjoy building their own bird box to hang in the garden, and the Bird Box kit includes tools specially designed for smaller hands so it’s really ready to go and then enjoy the diversity of birdlife in your garden.

The tools have been designed with smaller hands in mind so children find them easy to use, reducing the mistakes or slip ups they might make with full size tools.  Smaller kits include a money box with tools and for aspiring Bob’s there is a fabulous tool belt so everything is kept to hand ready for action!

The woodworking kits help kids develop a skill and a love of making and design, even if you don’t end up with engineers or architects’ at least your sons and daughters will be able to fix things around the home when the time comes!

Recycle reduce reuse, once you have the making bug and the tools to get started there are all sorts of projects they might be inspired to take on!

Go Kart Kit from Red Tool Box £66.37

Snooker Table Kit £32.99

Bird Box Kit with Tools £45.95

Money Box kit with Tools £20.42

Tool Belt £9.99

Set of Tools £24.99

Haba CasaMio Blocks

Just in is this fabulous set of soft fabric play blocks from Haba - Casa Mio or My Little House Blocks.

The set is presented in a carry bag so you can keep them tidy after play, but they are so wonderful we think you'll want to play with them every day!

These four first building blocks connect with magnets and are full of all the Haba play ideas, different materials to stimulate the senses of touch, sound and visual. 

The pink block has a cute little friend on elastic who pops up to play... and a mirror foil on the other side.

The fabric blocks are Made of cotton/polyester.

Size of pink house: 14 cm high.


Age: from 10 months


The Blue block contains a little wooden figure that comes out to play..............

The green block has a door to open and a little gem to touch and track inside the netting....

Haba really do invent toys that have maximum play power!

Available today on our site: http://www.ptolemytoys.co.uk/2191/Haba-Toys-CasaMio-Fabric-Play-Blocks.html

Ptolemy the Tortoise

We have just created this little advert to use for a local event we are supporting.  It's created using Serif Pageplus which cost very little and seems to be fairly easy to use without any training! Worth looking at if you have a small business and need to create your own artwork.

We love our little Ptolemy Tortoise who was designed by our lovely neighbour Jane Fieven with some technical help from her husband Geof  who runs a design consultancy in Milton Keynes called Redsky.

We'd love to hear your ideas for Ptolemy Tortoise - what should he get up to next? 

Matador Back in Stock

Buy Matador Now at Ptolemy Toys

We have just received a delivery of Matador from Austria. ..... one of our favourite construction toys for boys and girls who love to build and create working models.

what is Matador?  Click the Matador LOGO above to see our Range

  

 Ø Matador is a toy construction kit made of beech wood.

 

Ø Use a hammer and pins to put the blocks together.

 

Ø Use the special Matador tool to easily take apart the constructed objects.

 

Ø Matador is available for 2 age groups: Matador Ki and Matador Classic.

Matador is a design classic - every child in Austria has a set of Matador, and it's timeless nature unpins it's popularity.  Many of our customers buy this set for their children or grandchildren becuase they remember how many hours of fun and creativity they had with a matador set when they were young.

A traditional wooden toy that will be handed down the generations - Matador helps your children learn through play.  You can construct many different models and even add moving parts to your design. 

Matador is a design classic - every child in Austria has a set of Matador, and it's timeless nature unpins it's popularity.  Many of our customers buy this set for their children or grandchildren becuase they remember how many hours of fun and creativity they had with a matador set when they were young.

A traditional wooden toy that will be handed down the generations - Matador helps your children learn through play.  You can construct many different models and even add moving parts to your design. 

Kathe Kruse Dolls from Germany

Toni dolls from Kathe Kruse - the most beautiful play dolls from Germany

Just in time for Christmas we have added the Toni range of Kathe Kruse dolls to our website.  These dolls are 37cm tall and they can stand up independently, little girls love to play with them and take them into a land of imagination and fun.

Amelie Doll from Kathe Kruse

Amelie wears a classic navy striped dress and is ready to go to the party.  She loves to travel and will have great fun visiting cities the world over.

Valerie Doll from Kathe Kruse

Valerie is a fun doll who's ready for spending time with friends, she loves to visit her friends for play dates and will enjoy playing fun games with the girls.  She loves her outfit and has teamed her pretty floral skirt with her grey leggings and pink tee.  To keep her lovely blond hair in check she's wearing a pretty lilac hairband. 


All the Toni dolls have beautiful outfits - all are available separately from our site to order at £29.99 so you can dress up the dolls in any of the wonderful handmade outfits from Kathe Kruse.

Kaia Toni Doll Kathe Kruse

Kaia is a trendy little play friend, she loves sports and adventure, take her with you on trips and discover different worlds, cultures and experiences.  The perfect play friend, Kaia will be loved for many years by your little girls.

Lauren Toni Doll Kathe Kruse

Lauren is such a pretty red head doll, her gorgeous summer dress will stand out at any party, Lauren has style just take a look at her Ugg boots that she's matched with her dress - maybe she love to go to festivals and have fun dancing to great music.

Ellen from Kathe Kruse Toni Range

The last doll in our Toni Range from Kathe Kruse is Ellen, she is just as stylish and beautiful as her friends, very glamorous but with a sense of fun Ellen is a joy to play and everybody loves to invite her to a party.

We love these beautiful dolls and they are available to order from our website at £119.99 - a very special gift for very lucky girls!  Click one of the dolls to go directly to our site now!  

We are placing an order early next week with Kathe Kruse so if you love these dolls and think they would be a wonderful gift for a very special girl place your order on our website today.

Halloween ideas....

Halloween Pumpkins


Rather than carve your pumpkins if you have smaller children it's much safer and more fun for them to decorate them rather than watch you carving!  Another bonus is that they don't smell if you don't open them - and most people agree they do not smell too great!

We took inspiration from Good Housekeeping Magazine and are creating pretty jewel encrusted pumpkins, that look will look great on display in our shop later this month.  Here's Hebe's work in progress....not quite as stunning as the Good Housekeeping but it will look stunning when it's all done!

We'll post more photos as we create them and if you've been creative with pumpkins please send us photos of your pumpkins for our gallery!

Lovely Pens and Pencils

There comes a time when every child gets excited by art materials and pencil cases!

Drawing is definitely one of my daughters top 10 activities, from a simple colouring book to creating arty projects this is a great activity to encourage.

Not only will it help little ones improve their observational skills, it will also give you some quiet time to enjoy!

To make art fun it's a good idea to have a mix of different materials available, from pens and pencils to chalks and paints.

We love the Djeco range which has art materials and art projects in a box that are a joy to own and complete.











The kits include some fabulous art for boys and girls. Boys will enjoy the felt colour knights set with a colour by numbers scheme to ensure they end up with an amazing picture they will be proud to display on their bedroom wall. The Djeco sets come with all the materials needed so this knights set includes 8 felt tip pens and 4 knighthood scenes.

For Little ones the finger painting set is creative fun and produces a result they will love.

Girls are spoilt for choice one of our favourite sets is the Watercolour Workshop which includes 4 scenes to paint and create using cut outs, stick ons and 10 watercolours - and Djeco include a glue stick so it really is a project in a box. These make super gifts that any little girl would adore.

20 Alternative Signs Your Child is Gifted

I received an email this morning headed 20 Signs of a Gifted Child.... from Circle of Moms
It introduced itself in the preamble.... "kids are also commonly identified as gifted by the observations of families, teachers, and friends. Below are some of the many characteristics that gifted children often exhibit...." making sure to point out that "no one gifted child exhibits all the traits"...

Well I thought before I read the list what would my 20 signs be... and here they are

20 Alternative Signs Your Child is Gifted

Oh and it does help if they DO exhibit all the traits...

1. They say please and thank you appropriately
   
2. They look at you when they talk to you
3. They don't look like they have ants in their pants when talking to you
4. They eat what they are given when at a friends house
5. They are not fussy eaters
6. They don't only want to eat sweets
7. They write thank you letters willingly
8. They don't pick on other children who seem different
   
9. They don't show off, act up or throw temper tantrums
   
10. They thank parents of friends for having them to play/stay/sleepover
    
11. They say goodbye to friends when they leave
12. They do not spend all day watching TV or playing computer games
13. They do not sit with a DS or i-phone playing when you have friends or family over
14. They tell you about their day
15. They are able to describe events with more words than just "good" "ok" "nice"
    
16. They prefer to play in the garden than watch TV
17. They go to bed without any argument when asked to
    
18. They can play a game for more than 10 minutes and not end it in tears
19. They play with their siblings nicely
20. They are grateful for what they have

I think there's easily another 20 in me but I'll just keep working on these for now, after all Christmas is coming and you never know what gifts Santa might bring me....

What's in a Name?

I am regularly asked where did your name come from? So here's the story....

I'd been thinking about starting up a toy shop specialising in traditional wooden toys and needed a name pretty quickly to get the ball rolling as I was due to go out to the biggest Toy Fair in Europe at Nuremberg in a few weeks time!

One sunny winter morning lying in bed reading it all came together....

My son had always loved the Beatrix Potter books, and we knew many of them by heart! One of his favourites which we had just finished reading was Jeremy Fisher who had a friend Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise....

I had also recently read about the oldest Tortoise in the world - who was called "Harriet" and I took this to be a sign that Ptolemy Toys could be the name for my new venture!

It was also around the time in 2006 of the massively popular Restoration BBC series presented by Griff Rhys Jones and Ptolemy Dean - so many people had heard the name Ptolemy in their living rooms, and had started to be expert at pronouncing this unusual name....

The decision was made Ptolemy pronounced with a silent "P" .....tolemy toys sounded good to me....

Further research showed us that Ptolemy also had a wonderful link to education and learning, Claudius Ptolemy was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and poet who lived in AD90 - AD168. This tied into our love of traditional wooden educational toys that encourage children to explore and learn for themselves. Our name was well and truly born!


My lovely neighbour helped with the logo - have you seen how cleverly she designed P T into the tortoise shell? We've had fun with him too, he looks great in his little Santa hat for Christmas! Thankfully Christmas gifts from Ptolemy are not sent via Tortoise Delivery!

Ptolemy Toys is a wonderful business we love seeing little childrens' - well some parents and grandparents too if the truth be told - eyes light up as they walk into our magical shop in Brackley South Northamptonshire ...

Of course we also have lots of customers who come to us because they have called their sons Ptolemy -well it's almost too good to be true to have a toy shop named after you!

Check us out online or come and visit us in Brackley.

Wooden Toy Swords and Shields

Surely one of the first play toys ever the wooden sword is as popular as ever!

We started buying swords from Germany then a few years ago we stumbled upon a wonderful passionate toymaker from Wiltshire producing a range of fantastic swords and shields as well as other similar traditional toys.

A boy will naturally pick up a sword and start to play fight - it must be genetic programming! But it's not all fighting play.... wooden swords and shields also promote role play - "ok you're the king and I'm in your army - we're off to fight the outlaws!"

Weather it be Kings and Princes or Knights and Maidens or Robin Hood and his merry men this traditional play is kept alive because it is simple imaginative fun from an early age right up to pre-teens. Boys of 9 and 10 still come into our shop and want to buy swords! So much for DS and Wii we think this shows that the joy of real play beats a virtual world on the screen - at least for some of the time! And the good news is that these toys are a great price too!

Check our website for our range including Bow and Arrow Sets and Shields to Decorate yourself
www.ptolemytoys.co.uk

Ptolemy Toys trip to Giffords Circus 2011

Just browsing through our photos and came across a set from our favourite summertime treat - the wonderful Giffords Circus!


We have been inspired by our visits to Giffords to seek out circus toys and love our range of circus animals and sets for little ones.

If you have never been then definitely look out for the next Giffords production - you enter a magical world, full of song, music, awe, costume and fun.