Anyone who has read any of my old reviews will have seen that I am a big fan of the Me To You Bear range and I didn't think that anything would take over my love for those cute little bears. Well, how wrong was I? There was a new range of characters released by Carte Blanche in the summer of 2008 called My Blue Nose Friends. As with the Me To You range there is a story attached to the Blue Nose Friends and that is that a tatty teddy was lonely and was dreaming of a wardrobe full of friends. In his daydream, these friends included a cat, hedgehog and a duckling among many other animals.

There are new releases to the collection every season, and some of them will be limited edition so it is definately worth buying those when they are on sale.

There are now over 50 characters in the range and the first five in the collection are:

Patch the dog
Kittywink the cat
Blossom the rabbit
Dilly the duck
Toots the elephant

Since the release of the first there have been many more and almost every animal you can think of! Each character has a distinctive blue nose which is of course where the name of the range comes from.

With each character comes a little story of its own, for example Twiggy the giraffe says " The friendly giraffe who loves to chat....but will never tell your secrets"

The blue nose friends started out as little beany soft toys which stood at around 5 inches tall and retail at £5.00 each. I think that is a great price for such a fab quality little teddy! They are made out of a really soft cuddly fabric which is totally different to the feel of the me to you bears. There are also larger versions of some of the small characters, however I have personally only seen the dog, cat, reindeer and giraffe though there may be more available. These originally were retailing at £15.00 but in Clintons at the moment they are reduced to £10 which is a real bargain.

Since their launch, the Blue Nose Friends range has branched out into ceramic figurines and I so far only have 3 of the small ones but I am lucky to have the large ones that have been released. The first large figurine was a large tatty teddy sitting in his pyjama's surrounded by several of mini blue nose friends. I think this is a really lovely figure and this is reflected in the price tag which is £40.00, but again for something of such good quality it really isn't that much to pay. Other large ones show some of the friends climbing in a toy box, sitting on a large wooden chair and on a grandfather clock.

The range has now spread to partyware, pin badges, keyrings, charms and mini figurines. You will find the whole range of blue nose friends in Clintons which is the main retailer of the collection, and I am happy at the moment as my local card shop is selling off all their stock for half price!! I know my friend has bought me a couple of them for Christmas already and I am hoping that my mum has taken the hint and has also got a couple!

My first figure was the cat which was bought for me by my lovely friend, as she knew I just love cats and it was a present for me as I was helping her out - which I do not for a present! But all the same it was a lovely gift and it started off my collection which is growing but not as quickly as I would like!

I really adore this collection, and I think it will possibly totally replace my me to you collection or at least banish that to somewhere else in the house! I also think that they make lovely presents and I am sure that there is at least one of the figures that will suit every single person!

For more information on this gorgeous range, visit www.carteblanchegreetings.com/mybluenosefriends

Thank you for reading my review :)