Two New Styles of Christmas Stocking Holders Just Arrived!

Two new styles of Christmas stocking holders just arrived this week from RAZ. Both are from the Peppermint Kisses collection and are very unique and whimsical. One set is a style of white gingerbread cottages that even have little fences around them. The other is a cupcake style Snowman and Santa. If you're looking for some different for your mantle this year, you might want to consider these new 2010 stocking holders from RAZ.

RAZ White Gingerbread Cottage Style Stocking Holder 3007069

• Set of 2, assorted styles
• Pink, Green, White
• Made of Polyresin
• Measures 10", 8"

Set of two cottage style white gingerbread houses, one taller than the other, decorated in pink, blue, green, yellow. Both have little fences around them, polka dots on the back. From the Peppermint Kisses Collection of RAZ.

RAZ Santa and Snowman Cupcake Christmas Stocking Holder Set of 2 3007076

• 2 Assorted, set includes one of each styel
• Pink, White, Green
• Made of Polyresin
• Measures 11", 10.5"

Whimsical Santa and Snowman Cupcake Christmas stocking holders. Santa is holding a chocolate cookie and cup of cocoa and Snowman is holding a peppermint candy cane. Both are wearing cupcake style hats. Snowman has a flattened nose over to the side. Bases are lime green. From the "Peppermint Kisses" collection of RAZ Imports

Visit us on Trendy Tree to see more Christmas stocking holders from RAZ!

Gumdrop Candy Spray Just Arrived!

This new Gumdrop Candy Spray from RAZ just arrived and is simply adorable! The candies look just like sugared gumdrops! The gumdrops are in almost every color - pink, dark pink, red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, white and have a coating on them that look like the real thing. You'll have to watch your children around this one! They will be tempted.

The sprays are assorted. One has round gumdrops and the other has round and cone shaped. The stem is silver colored and metal.

They remind me of the old gumdrop tree form that was made of plastic and you would stick gumdrops on the individual limbs. These are still around!

The RAZ Gumdrop branches would make a great addition to your Gingerbread house collection. Them limbs can be positioned and you could mount the stem in a piece of styrofoam and cover with snow.

Visit Trendy Tree today to see our new items for 2010 that are arriving from RAZ! View the RAZ Christmas Spray section to see all our stems and picks.

Using Sprays and Picks in Your Holiday Decorating

Using colorful, sparkling glitter sprays made with shiny balls, stems, pom poms and iced branches can add a touch of whimsy to your holiday decorations.

The addition of tall stems in the top of your Christmas tree can add another 1 - 1/2" in ht and be a dramatic focal point. They can also be used as fillers to take care of empty space or holes between the branches.

This tree from the RAZ Peppermint Kisses collection uses chenille stems in the top, tall candy canes and red berry sprays.

The Winter Twinkle tree from RAZ is loaded with old fashioned multicolored balls and stars. It has multicolored sequin ball sprays shooting out the top.

This mantel from the Christmas Cosmo collection of RAZ uses primarily red, green and gold. It has long squiggly glittered green limbs that stretch from one size of the mantel to the other.

This decoration from the Christmas Scoops collection of RAZ uses lime green and red acanthus leaf sprays. The green glittered leaves add more color. Long dangling glittered spiral sprays fall on down toward the floor. This arrangement is good for a newel post also.The acanthus leaf spray is one of our most popular RAZ sprays at Trendy Tree. Classic red, green and white with the addition of sparkling glitter and a few leaves. Very versatile.

Review: Surf Pushchair

I got hold of this pushchair back in May and I have made sure that I have put this pushchair through its paces in the name of reviewing.

I was first drawn to this pushchair because of the obvious good looks. Yes, it is still a pushchair I am talking about. Anyone who is a member of Facebook or any mums' forum, will know the amount of vigorous testing that goes in to 'Pram shopping.' After good looks I really liked the fact that it could turn into a rear-facing pushchair. I had seen so many contented looking babies in rear-facing pushchairs staring in to their mother's eyes that I couldn't wait to get my 16 month old in one. Fast-forward to when I get this pushchair and I was sadly disappointed; my son absolutely hated being rear-facing. It's a wonder I don't develop a complex - I mean why wouldn't he want to look at my face lol. But that was the absolutely wonderful thing about this pushchair - I hadn't lost anything because I could simply turn the pushchair around to be a forward-facing pushchair. He absolutely loved this pushchair then. I think the fact that he is an older baby means that he no longer wants to stare in to my face but wants to keep in touch with nature and his surroundings. After all the big wide world is fascinating! The rear-facing is probably more suited for younger babies but I was so glad that I had the option of switching the pushchair around.

So now my pushchair looks like this:

And I get tons of comments about what a lovely looking pushchair it is! Best of all my son loves it and can't wait to get in and pull the safety bar over him. I am totally safe in the knowledge that if he was to have a tumble in the pushchair it gives such a lot of protection.

Anyway, the most amazing thing about this for me was the suspension. I no longer felt every bump and even on the most pebbliest of roads I just glided along it. Silver Cross's slogan for this pushchair is 'It's all about the ride.' After using this pushchair I totally agree!

I also love all the accessories that come with this pushchair. In particular the parasol; combined with the hood of the pushchair, you can totally cover up your precious little baby. So often with pushchairs you always get a patch of sunlight targeting your child. This simply is not a problem for me anymore.

It's so often the case that pushchairs proclaim to be this and that; and I can say that the Surf Pushchair lives up to everything it claims to be. We have even taken this pushchair along the beach with ease even. It really is an amazing all-terrain pushchair.

Fully reversible seat unit, forward or rearward facing

Ultra light weight chassis (7.5 KG)

Unique babynest seat suitable from birth

Three position recline to full lie flat

Shopping basket

Super light and compact fold

Puncture free tyres

Another brilliant thing about this pushchair was that I could let my son go to sleep upright and then put him totally flat when he fell asleep. The way the head and feet supports are positioned it almost mimics the way they lay in the womb - so it all looks very cosy! My son goes to sleep in this for hours at a time!!

As for the wheels, even my aircraft engineer husband was highly impressed with them. Surf is the world's first pushchair to use magnesium alloy castings. It's over one third lighter than aluminium and a dream to push your baby along on!

Here's the specs:

Price:	£565.00
Age suitable for:	Birth-3yrs
Weight:	10.2kg
Height:	101cm
Width:	58cm
Depth:	112cm
Height (folded):	72cm
Width (folded):	59cm
Depth (folded):	28cm

An absolutely amazing pushchair!
Verdict: 10/10 from the Sweet Craftiness household.

For more info please visit http://www.silvercross.co.uk/

Review: Yummy Dough

Introducing a very new product; Yummy Dough! What is it I hear you ask?

From the Yummy Dough site: "Yummy Dough is a multi-purpose toy! Mixed with water the Yummy Dough powder turns into smooth, kneadable, easily shapeable dough which can be baked afterwards. You can eat it raw or after it is baked.

Yummy Dough cleverly combines two favorite childhood activities: creating designs with play dough and baking with mum, dad or a grandparent - a wonderful bonding experience for all generations."

Step 1: Master Craftiness empties a sachet in to a bowl. Adds 15ml of water from a syringe. Mixes with a spoon until crumbly and then kneads with hands to make a workable dough. Repeat for other 3 sachets.

Master Craftiness busy mixing.

Step 2: Once the colours are all kneaded in to the Yummy Dough it is time to get modelling. It was great fun! Basically anything can be modelled with Yummy Dough. We took our inspiration from some of our favourite monsters from Blue2. So we basically looked at the design and got modelling.

The monster below was created by making an oval-ish sort of shape and then criss-crossing it with the Yummy Dough modelling tool to create a textured look. We then made a hole for the mouth and stuck lots of little yellow pieces in for the mangy teeth look. To make the eyes we rolled tiny yellow balls and then placed smaller green balls on top. We then took a cocktail stick to pierce the dough to give the look of pupils. We then made the nose, horns, eyebrows and arms and legs.

We named this creation Bluebell!

We had great fun modelling the monsters together and found the use of cocktail sticks a great help! We continued modelling more monsters and our fun was only spoilt when the baby woke up from his afternoon nap and started to try and squish our monsters.

Here are our creations before they went in the oven!

Here's our creations after they came out of the oven.

The texture was very similar to cookies and the dough was certainly 'Yummy'!

I think the resulting creations are evidence to show how easy Yummy Dough is to work with and we will certainly be using Yummy Dough again in the future. A great activity!

For more info please visit www.mapstoys.co.uk

Review: www.thinkpinkblue2.com girls goodies

Ok, well I've explained why we love the 'Blue2' section of www.thinkpinkblue2.com and now I am going to explain why I love the 'Think Pink' section. I don't have daughters to spoil with pink and girly items but it's still lovely to indulge my feminine side with all things pink. So I've picked some of the treasures that 'Think Pink' stock that even appeal to the adults.

Firstly we have the wooden blocks 'Home' sign. Wooden blocks are bang on trend in the world of home styling. And these blocks fit in to most colour schemes because of the pastel colours used. An example of how I have used them in my house is below. Although my whole colour scheme revolves around neutral colours, these wooden blocks make an eye-catching centrepiece. And certainly add warmth to the room.


In some home design stores letter blocks can be very pricey. But I was over the moon when I discovered that these blocks only cost £9.99. I love the 'Eat' and 'Love' letters they do too. They are a lovely weighty item and the colours used are just fabulous. Every morning I walk in to my living room and these letters immediately cheer me up. Although my son is slowly trying to send me mad as each time I go in to the room he has rearranged them to spell 'mhoe' or ehom.' But overall I adore these letters.

Next up we have this adorable recipe book. This is great for keeping yourself organised or would make a great teacher gift. Even if you have no intentions of storing recipes in it, it looks fabulous placed on the kitchen worktop.



For me personally this is a godsend. I love testing out new recipes from magazines and online and now I can keep track of the ones we like and the ones we have tested out and dislike. Now I can keep all my recipes close to hand in this stylish book which comes with clear pockets, lined paper and tabbed sections to help you keep sauces separate from your marinades! This will get tons of use in my household and I love the fact that I can tear out pages from magazines and slip them in to the pockets too!

So if you fancy browsing for something girly to cheer yourself up then visit www.thinkpinkblue2.com

Review: www.thinkpinkblue2.com boys goodies

We have just found an adorable online store called www.thinkpinkblue2.com. The girls department being 'Think Pink' and the boy's being 'Blue2'. What we love about this store is the fact that all their products are exclusively designed by them. Meaning that when I buy this pencil case for Master Craftiness it's highly unlikely that it's going to get confused by someone else in school for theirs. Better still is the fact that the characters that have been designed are so adorable. We think the characters could quite happily belong in a TV show of their own they are so good.

So what products do they do? Pirates, Space Cadets, Robots, Dinosaurs, Secret Spys. They've let their imagination run wild to produce amazing boys products. We've picked two of their products to review, and these are from their 'Monster Range.' We particularly liked the 'Monster Pencil Case' which we feel inspires you to draw because of the beautifully illustrated characters adorning the front of the pencil case.

The characters possess all the qualities that appeal to children and in particular boys; the characters are quirky, colourful and best of all monstrous!

Inside the pencil case you have a lovely range of coloured pencils, a sharpener, a rubber, a ruler and most importantly a pen to define all your cartoon drawings. The pencil case opens by a quirky little monster tag on a zip. This pencil case will be brilliant for long car journeys.....

Anyway, we were so inspired, myself and Master Craftiness settled down for a quick doodle of the monsters. Here's our work:

Two drawings by Master Craftiness

I had a quick doodle with Master Craftiness and before long the monsters had come alive on the page and were explaining why we loved www.thinkpinkblue2.com so much!

And what will we be storing in the pencil case in when we go on holiday? Well it will be none other than the Monster Wheelie Rucksack from www.thinkpinkblue2.com.
It's great because not only can it be worn as a rucksack but if it gets too heavy it can be wheeled around like a trolley. Master Craftiness can't wait to fill it with his goodies. Again, you have one of the monsters gracing the front of this rucksack so it immediately appeals to children. Even better is the fact that it has a Velcro piece by the monsters mouth and comes with a variety of Velcro speech bubbles that you can stick on to the outside of the case. So your child can customise it to suit his or Mr Monster's mood. Wicked!!

These make the perfect accessories for any holiday or even just the perfect gift if you would like to inspire your child with creativity.

Take a look and see what wonderful things you can find at www.thinkpinkblue2.com