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Peppa Pig Picnic Tea Set
by myloh
I'm reviewing Peppa Pig's Picnic Set .
I was initially horrified to hear that this cost £14 (from Santa ) , but on reflection it was worth it due to the use we have made of it.
***WHAT YOU GET***
We got three cups.
Three Saucers.
Three spoons.
One teapot with lid.
One milk jug(no ... lid).
One sugar bowl with lid.
One picnic mat.
All contained in a bright pink picnic basket which looks like wicker but is actually plastic .
First off ours is NOT as depicted above regarding colours. Ours is pink and purple and much more tasteful than the yellow & blue one I think.(sticks nose in the air haughtily)
It is made from plastic of course, and each item has Peppa or her brother George depicted on it.
Holly (the little girl I child-mind) is fond of Peppa pig. Not as obsessed as she once was, but clearly still retains a liking for all things Peppa, and when looking for a tea set from Santa Holly's mum settled for this to balance out other different 'character' play items Santa was leaving, rather than have everything based round her latest fad character.
But tea sets need people to share with. Dollies are fine to a degree , but can't interact with the hostess in the way humans do,and Holly's mum was always too busy working and catching up at home for lengthy messy play. Now that Holly spends lots of time at my house daily the picnic set has come into it's own and gets played with daily. She really REALLY enjoys it. Generally I will produce a pouch of capri-sun juice, a tiny packet of milk chocolate buttons ,slice up a Milky Way and split a satsuma into segments and voila! ....Holly is hosting a picnic with 'cookies' and cake and slices of fruit and she and her brother enjoy setting everything out and organising games round the picnic scenario .It usually lasts at least half an hour before ending when brother gets bored. Then Holly takes over clearing up or playing making meals with it.
So the set gets really well used and all it takes is a little imagination and encouragement .
Another issue it helps with is responsibility. Holly knows it is HER job to take the used dishes out to the bathroom and wash them ,dry them and pack them away for next time and she even has her own little tea towel for this. Plus they learn that gobbling everything up in one fell swoop is greedy and brings the fun to an abrupt end.....hence her stringing it out with games of 'hide the bangle' ,where her brother can only have a treat from the plates if he finds the bangle hidden in the room.She is also fastidious in supplying napkins (kitchen roll) and ensuring both she and her little brother wash their hands before and after the picnic.All good.
The set is sturdy and has taken a fair bit of abuse and is still going strong 5 months on with only minor signs of wear and tear.
The 'basket' still has a working catch ,which surprised me ,because I thought it would not last long. The mat has been lost at some point,but that isn't the fault of the set(more like a careless mummy) and I replaced it with a hemmed piece of thin bright fabric,so no big deal.
One annoyance is needing to use the saucers as plates. I think three plates should have been included in the set.
***MY THOUGHTS ON IT***
Children need stimulation regarding some play items. There is no point in shoving toys like this at them and trotting off leaving them to it every single time. I understand not everyone has time for joining in play time,but if you can spare some time for interaction to get their imaginations fired then this little set is great. Even on days when I leave them to their own devices I hear Holly using phrases I would use when joining in ....monkey see,monkey do.....so this has come into it's own and has offered lots of fun to Holly and her little brother. And me.
Like I say,I thought £14 a bit steep for a basic plastic tea set/picnic set,but it has lasted well and given us all lots of fun and I expect it to continue being useful when the rain finally decides to stop and we can use the garden.
Would I recommend ? Yes I would. But I'm removing one star because everyone knows that picnics need plates.
Thank you for reading and I hope this was useful~~~myloh.
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Star Wars Fighter Pods Super Battle Set
by cha97mw
Last October my son was given some cash by my parents for his 6th birthday. He chose a number of choice items from the toy store, Smyths. At the time he had just seen the Star Wars films as they were being showed on TV over a few weekends. Enjoying the concept, he selected a few Star Wars items, one of which was this set of fighter pods ... which cost him £25.
Firstly, if this set is something you are interested in buying, I really recommend looking around for it, as on amazon, it is usually between £40 and £50, and if we had paid as much as this for it, I would have been a bit upset. The box is quite big, but the contents are very small, and it seems a bit flimsy for the higher price.
I had not come across fighter pods, but these are basically small spherical balls made from a clear plastic, that you can unscrew into two halves to put a small star wars miniature figure inside. These pods can then fit in vehicles, or you can just roll them around to play some sort of game - to be honest, I am not quite clear what the game is as it never said on the box, but my boys play a game where they stand the mini figures up then roll the balls along to knock figures down. The small figures can also be fixed to nodules on the outer surface of the pods, which is more useful when in some of the vehicles, but when you are rolling the balls along, this is a pretty pointless option.
These pods are mostly easy to open - we have a couple from our ten that are a bit stiff to unscrew, and my sons will have to get me to open them to get their characters out again.
There are many smaller sets which only contain a few of the pods and characters. This bumper super battle set has 30 different figures, 10 of the fighter pods, and 4 different vehicles to transport the pods, so as my children tend to play games together mostly, it made sense to get more for our money so they could have a game. I am not a Star Wars expert, but the vehicles you get are recognisable to me from the films.
There is an AT-AT vehicle, which is like a camel type shape with a hole in where its tummy would be to carry two of the pods. There is then two snow speeders which are fighter jet shaped and can fit one pod in. The third type of vehicle is a Jedi starfighter, a more pointy nosed jet which can also carry one pod. The balls make these smaller vehicles move nicely as the ball sits on points in the vehicle so it can rotate round 180 degrees on this axis and move smoothly along on this rolling motion.
The characters are about 1cm in height, which is absolutely minute. Our biggest problem with this is that the pieces are so small they are easily lost. We don't have 30 left 6 months after purchase as the dog has pinched a couple and chewed them, and my youngest son also took some to school where he then lost them.
The figures are made from a rubbery material, and they are a moulded shape with no moveable parts. At the bottom is a little circular indentation which allows you to stand them on the pegs in the pods. Each figure stands well on its own on an even surface like a table or wooden floor. While very small, the amazing thing is that you can identify characters quite strongly. They don't look indistinguishable, and there has been a lot of effort put into making these look like characters from the movie. My sons were thrilled by some of these like Yoda, Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt and Luke Skywalker. There are also plenty of stormtroopers and more minor characters within this set. For a full list of all the characters available to buy, and to see the attention to detail, you can see here: http://www.fighterpods.com/en-GB/collection.html
When my son initially picked this, although I could see he really liked it, I hoped he wouldn't pick it as it was so small and my sons are not known for keeping all their toys of one type together. However, they have been really good on the whole with this. I gave them an old sweetie tin and all the bits fit in that nicely, and they know it needs to all go back in there. I do have to double check they have done this at the end of play, but it is not as unmanageable as I feared. We could have gone for storing it back in the original packaging, but this was a large moulded plastic sheet within a cardboard box, and would have been quite bulky to store.
We tend to play with this downstairs on the wooden floor rather than upstairs on carpet as the pods move more freely and the people stand up better. There is also more space for uninterupted play. We need to make sure the dog is not near when they play as the balls rolling around get him quite giddy and wanting to join in with play. This is when he tends to pinch the people while the kids are not looking at him.
I think my eldest son was a good age to get this as a toy. My younger son is only just getting old enough to appreciate it as he approaches his 5th birthday.
My only complaint is that I can see that there is some sort of game that the makers intend you to play, and it would help if there was some sort of explanation. There is also a website with some sort of game related to the toy, but again, this was not mentioned on the packaging.
Its not a big thing as my sons have made their own games and stories with the pieces, but it might give a bit more direction.
This is an enjoyable set for people who like playing with little figures, and I can see it would be fun for someone to collect the whole set of vehicles and figures. I think it is more fun to play with this with a friend in a battle type scenario from how I've seen my children play.
On the whole this is well constructed, and there are no breakable parts to come off. I think this is great for children at least 6 years and older who can play with this without losing the bits and have the dexterity to open and close the pods and insert the pods into the vehicles.
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Marvel Union Jack
by Decanus
Being a comic book collector of many years, I tend to spend the majority of my money on the comics and graphic novels themselves as I obviously want to read about the characters above anything else. These days though, there are a million and one pieces of merchandise out there, and a fan and his money are easily ... parted.
Although the majority of my collecting is of American characters (Superman and Captain America are my two favourite characters) I love British characters as well. Marvel Comics publish two of my favourites, Captain Britain and Union Jack, and I tend to collect almost anything that features them..which is how I came to be in possession of this action figure.
Hasbro, as part of their merchandising tie-up with Marvel have produced hundreds of lines, and this line, the small but perfectly formed 3 3/4 inch Marvel Universe line first appeared in 2009 and are still being released today in 'waves' (marketing speak for batches). It has proved a very popular line, due to the quality of the figures themselves. I own several of them, and like them all.
Union Jack himself is a great figure, and a great character. In the Marvel Universe, he was originally the British version of Captain American, fighting in both World Wars, and recently another person has taken up the mantle, working alongside MI5 as a state sponsored hero. It is this modern version that the figure represents (not that it really matters!)
The Union Jack figure was first produced as part of Wave 4 of the Marvel Universe releases, and was the 26th figure up to that point. He was slightly unique in that there are two version available; the 'standard' version, with his traditional weapons included, a pistol and dagger, and a 'variant' with just the figure and no weapons included. As these figures are as much aimed at children as adult collectors, I suppose Marvel didn't want to risk offending some parents with the weapons. Most superheroes obviously have fantastical non-offensive weapons (Thor's Hammer, Cap America's Shield etc), so a gun and knife are a bit too real world for some.
The figure itself is, as they all are, 3 3/4 inches tall, and comes in the Marvel Universe branded packaging; the S.H.I.E.L.D logo is also prominently displayed, as these early wave figures were part of The Fury Files. The Fury Files figures included a envelope, marked 'Top Secret' which includes a Superhuman Registration Act card and official S.H.I.E.L.D. file for each character, plus nice character art by Marvel artist Frank Cho. Nice little bonus!
Union Jack is excellent quality, very nicely sculpted and painted. He has several points of articulation, so is fully poseable, and can hold weapons as well. It is a pretty durable figure as well, as not being one of those collectors that never open anything, I let my kids play with the figures when they want to, and Union Jack is a pretty tough customer!
Hasbro have been hit and miss with their Marvel licence, but this line is one that has been a great success; great choice of figures, high quality sculpts, and those nice little extras like the S.H.I.E.L.D files.
Recommended for Marvel fans, and fans of action figures...plus kids that never grow up, like me.
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