Carry Me Home

I want to share something with all my lovely readers. It's a fabulously well kept secret that I'm about to blow the lid off! Am I ashamed? Nope, I just want to share with you all something that's got me so excited recently, probably more excited than the kids!

Ever heard of Carry Me Home? Well they are a brilliant range of innovative toys that will keep even children with short attention spans kept amused literally for days, weeks even! The range is basically a fold out and pop up building (cottage houses for girls and fire stations for boys) made from cardboard that can be coloured in! It's a really simple concept but provides literally an endless amount of amusement.

When your chosen building arrives it's all flat packed in a thin narrow box. You open this and it folds out to a layout style floor mat for everything to be placed on. Then there is the central building itself and a whole range of other inserts. There are four rooms for each building that you can choose to fit inside yours, each is reverseable too so you can mix and match them depending on what story you little one's imagination is playing out! There are also numerous characters included to help bring the role play aspect to life!

I have been helping a friend look after her 8 year old quite a lot recently and she was adament she was too old for 'dolls houses' but when I got this out for her she couldn't get her hands on it quick enough! We gently pressed all the cardboard pieces out of their slotted places and I did all the folding that was needed. There is no glue or scissors required for these toys, it's all very eco friendly so all you do is just reconfirm where the folds are supposed to go and voila you are done!

We chose to start with the smaller dolls house which we thought would be the best place to start and my friend's daughter Sophia said she wanted to use colouring crayons for it rather than paints-this was fine with me although I am looking forward to cracking on with the fire station for Joshua in paint! I had a nice pack of colouring pencils and we sat down together to get going. I am not even joking when I say we barely moved all afternoon! The deep concentration on our faces literally repelled my other half from the room for fear of intruding! But we were so engrossed in creating our beautiful country cottage that we didn't care. All the time we were chatting away naming our characters, planning a story that we could play out with them and discussing our colour themed ideas for every little detail of the cottage and it's rooms!

 When I say every little detail, it's amazing how much attention to detail has been paid to these toys. The rooms are 'furnished' with decorations and furniture to adorn in any way you choose and the building itself has flowers and details to match up too! So far we have managed to colour four of the rooms, our characters and the house itself but we haven't finished the floor mat just yet! Like I said it's time consuming but in a brilliant way because you aren't bored-just driven to complete it!

 Sophia not only enjoyed the craft element of this, she is also straight to the cottage when she comes over and sets about playing dolls houses with it and the characters etc. So much for her being "too grown up" for dolls houses hey?! So for me I couldn't be more excited about these toys because they offer so much potential on the craft side and also as a toy when finished too! And all for only £10 (for this smaller cottage)-deffinately affordable for everyone!
As we all know as parents it's like World War III when you are trying to occupy your children and these toys are excellent because they offer craft and play in one. The fact they are completely eco-friendly and very well priced makes them my newest favourite toy on the market! Yes I am literally gushing about this product, nothing else has excited me this much since my best friend had her baby!

 I would recommend the Carry Me Home range for children from about age 3 Years upwards. I think any younger and the enjoyment will only be minimal with the craft side of things but the older they are then the more they can get from these products. Like I said, Sophia is 8 and this is her newest favourite toy and I am the greatest honourary auntie "ever" so I'm very pleased! I also think these will make excellent gifts because there isn't anything else like these on the market so you can gurantee you will be giving a present that won't be duplicated and will be eagerly received!

I must confess that the day after we started operation 'colour cottage' Sophia arrived and suspictiously eyed the cottage while I averted my eyes with guilt. She quickly asked me if I had coloured some more in after she went home the day before to which I couldn't lie and admitted I had. She honestly shot me the dirtiest look like I'd eaten the last cookie or something! Good job I didn't tell her how long I spent doing it without her?! After all I am far too grown up for colouring!

Tykee Toys are the manufacturer and you can buy their products from their website here or you can see them every weekend at Covent Gardens Jubilee Market Halls and look out for them at Bovingdon and Wembley in the coming weeks too!

If you fancy grabbing a piece of the action for your little man or little lady then look no further because I have one to give away to one lucky reader! Click here for my competition courtesy of Carry Me Home to win a choice of either their Fire Station or Cottage for your little one!