Hollie has loved dressing up as a princess from a young age, she also loves wands and plastic play jewellery so when I spotted a pretty wand and tiara set in John Lewis priced at just £5 I decided to treat her despite the fact she already has plenty dotted around the house. It was nicely, if basically, packaged in a thick plastic bag with good quality card 'frame' around the bag to form more of a box shape - its definitely a set you could give as a gift without embarrassment as it looks good and makes the most of the pieces visually.

The wand is around eight inches long and made of a shiny silver plastic; the butterfly shape on the end of the wand is made of the same plastic and features two small metal malleable antenna, both of which snapped within two weeks of Hollie beginning to play with the wand. The pink feathered centrepiece and all four sequins did too, unfortunately leaving messy glued up portions on the plastic butterfly shape.

Luckily the butterfly has been well thought out and looks good even without these embellishments, it's a lovely noticeable shape and the plastic is dimpled for effect. I've noticed on Dooyoo's piccie above that this dimpling runs down the length of the wand, but this isn't the case on Hollie's and I'm glad as I really like the effect of the smooth plastic on the handle of the wand compared to the textured finish of the butterfly.

The wand seems to be surprisingly durable; Hollie has used it to play in the house and garden regularly since I bought it for her, as well as taking it to two fancy dress occasions at school, and apart from some very minor chipping of the silver on the pointed tips of the butterfly's wings (and the obvious loss of feathers and sequins) the wand looks in fabulous condition. She particularly loved 'Book Day' a few weeks ago as she was the only princess with a wand that was shaped like anything other than a star and apparently all her little princessey friends were highly jealous, luckily by this point it still had its feathers and (most of the) sequins so looked ace! The handle is very thin, I suspect it'll be this that fails in the end as I've heard a faint creak a few times recently when Hollie throws it down - I think maybe the butterfly will snap off as the join isn't feeling too strong at the moment, but we'll have to wait and see!

It's obviously going to be a role play toy unless, like my friends little girl, your child just likes to sit holding the wand. Hollie has an amazing imagination and plays proper fairy games with it, she was going to use it with her witches costume for Halloween but we've decided it's far too pretty to be used by an ugly old witch! Personally I love listening to her reenacting Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom with her toddler brother, of course Hollie takes the role of Princess Holly with poor David standing around like a mute little elf looking very bored at being continually changed into a rabbit, frog or ladybird!

I'm happy with the wand for the price I paid, it's very much a throwaway plastic toy despite the John Lewis branding but ours is lasting nicely so far despite pretty heavy use. When it breaks I won't make a point of visiting John Lewis to replace it but Hollie is happy with it and for me that's all that matters - the matching tiara is also fabulous and far more durable in terms of the feathers and jewels not falling off!