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Portmeirion Very Hungry Caterpillar Money Box
by northernlovely
I recently redecorated my little girl's bedroom and I wanted a few nice decorative pieces in it. She absolutely loves the Very Hungry Caterpillar (both the book and the DVD) and when I saw this Portmeirion Very Hungry Caterpillar Money Box at Eureka! (the children's museum in Halifax West Yorkshire) in the gift shop, I thought it would ... be a lovely gift for her (as we'd visited on her birthday).
I've also seen the Portmeirion Very Hungry Caterpillar Money Box in Debenhams, independent gift shops, John Lewis and online. The price I paid was £12 which seems about average, you can see it for around £10 online but that's bumped up by the postage and packaging charge and to be honest given it is made from porcelain I wouldn't personally want to risk having it delivered and possibly broken especially if I was wanting to give it as a gift. I've seen it up to £15 in gift shops so as I say, £12 seems quite fair.
So, the Portmeirion Very Hungry Caterpillar Money Box is presented in a white removable lid box which has the hungry caterpillar on the front and the Eric Carle logo on the back. It's made from a chunky glazed porcelain and the best way I can describe the shape is like a featureless postbox (you can get one in the shape of a leaf, too, but I prefer this one as it's more practical.) Like the box, the money box is white and is painted with the hungry caterpillar on the front and the Eric Carle logo on the back. It's fairly simplistic but very nice looking, beautifully painted and the glaze is spot on, no cracks or drips and so on. It feels like a quality item.
In the top of the money box is a single coin slot which fits all UK coins and notes, it holds plenty of money, and in the bottom there is a removable black plastic stopper which covers a hole about 2 inches across. It's quite easy to get the money out with a minimal of shaking (which is good, with a porcelain money box!). We tend to use it more for decoration, but if she has any spare pennies we put them in the money box until the next time we go to the seaside, and if she gets any gifts of paper money we put them in there until next time we can go to the bank. Our little girl understands that even though it has a caterpillar on it, it's not a toy, but even so with the weight of it and it being breakable we do have it on a shelf out of her reach.
I think the Portmeirion Very Hungry Caterpillar Money Box is a lovely item, well worth the money and quite traditional in style. The addition of the nice gift box means that it does make a lovely gift, and is easy to wrap, too (always a bonus!). I have since given this exact same money box as a gift along with the Hungry Caterpillar book, to a friend who's son just turned one. It was very well received and has now become one of his favourite books (and places to store pennies!).
Overall then I highly recommend the Portmeirion Very Hungry Caterpillar Money Box, it's very reasonably priced, made to an extremely high standard and one of the nicest giftware items I've seen in a while. I highly recommend it as a lovely addition to the decor of your child's room or as a gift for family and friends. I will give it five stars out of five as I think it really deserves them.
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Sperm Keyring
by thehonesttruth
One of the many reasons I love going to various Pride festivals each year is that I can never resist a good freebie - I always come home laden with pens, condoms, lanyards, lollipops, and keyrings. And, it was at Nottingham Pride last July that I picked up this little sperm keyring as a freebie.
Essentially, it's a small ... plastic keyring, very hard and rigid, moulded into the shape of a sperm, with a wiggly tail, and an oval head, with small bumps on the head indicating where eyes would be. Aside from the bumps indicating the eyes, the body of the sperm, and the tail are almost perfectly smooth. My Sperm is a translucent green, and glows in the dark once 'charged' under direct light. It is attached to a small metal linked chain, which in turn is attached to a standard key ring loop, allowing you to attach keys for safe keeping.
I rather like the little fellow - whilst I do currently have him attached to my house keys, in my old house I actually had him attached to my bathroom light pull, where guests would have to pull him to turn the light on when they wanted to use the toilet. He provoked endless giggles, and plenty of comment, and if left to 'charge' under the lights for a little while, would glow in the dark, albeit not very brightly.
When I moved house, I didn't want to leave him behind, so I took him off and popped him onto my new house keys. He's quite small, approximately 2 inches long from head to tail, not including key ring fixings, so popping him into a pocket is easy. He's sustained a little damage from me occasionally chewing on his tail when I get bored though!
The one criticism I do have is that he does have eyes - which of course sperm, being single celled organisms do not! It's a shame he's not a little more anatomically correct, though it does make it possible to pass him off as a tadpole!
Overall, I think he was a fun little freebie. He's available from amazon for 49p, which seems reasonable until you take into account the £3 delivery charge - I certainly wouldn't be willing to pay this for him, cute as he is! Still, since I didn't have to pay, I'm happy to award him 4 stars!
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