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Showing posts from March, 2009

Free paper toys - Craft toys to make with your children

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From the workshop of the talented Marilyn Scott-Waters, comes the toymaker website. Marilyn shares our passion for spending time with your children and making things together. This doesn't have to be expensive, and you don't need to be a master carpenter either, as these wonderfully illustrated toys are made entirely from paper. All you will need to get started, is a printer, some scissors, some glue and a little dash of creativity, along with mummy or daddy to help. Once you enter the site, there are activities for girls and boys to choose from, including themed projects for Easter or Halloween. Athough many of these toys are beautifully illustrated, you may prefer toys that you can colour in yourself - We'll there is a section for that too, so get out your paints, crayons, coloured pencils or felt tip pens and get colouring in with the selection of colouring in projects . If you are looking for something more educational, then you will find a range of mathematical toys t

Get FREE Traditional Toys from Toyday with Trialpay

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For those of you that haven't heard about trialpay yet, it is a service that allows you to get products and services (In this case - Toys) for free. OK, so nothing in life is free, so what's the catch? - Well, it's more about an exchange of values.... How does Trialpay work? Customers pay for their product by sending flowers from FTD, buying clothes from the Gap, subscribing to Netflix or choosing from thousands of other offers. TrialPay uses money from the advertiser (FTD, Gap or Netflix in this example) to pay for the products, which is then given to the customer for free. With TrialPay’s Get It Free model, everyone wins: online sellers make new sales, advertisers acquire new customers and shoppers get a free product. Trialpay Increases conversion rates for businesses Trialpay has mainly been popular in the software industry, increasing conversion rates phenominally by upgrading customers from a free trial to the full product by signing up for an advertisers offer. Since

Craft Idea's To Try with Blake

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Blake is approaching 16 months old now and is into everything. Here is a couple of craft ideas I'm going to try with him: Homemade Finger Paint Recipe Ingredients: Sugar Cornflour Cold water Food colouring Stir four tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 cup of cornflour together; add two cups of cold water, and heat over a medium heat until the mixture is thick. Then split the mixture and add different coloured food colouring or food colour paste. When it's cold your ready to paint! Homemade Playdough Recipe Ingredients: 1 tbsp cooking oil 1 cup plain flour ½ cup salt 1 cup water 2 tsps cream of tartar 1 tsp food colouring of choice Place all ingredients into a saucepan and mix well over a low heat. Remove from the heat when it forms a moist dough. Kneed it until smooth. Then once it is cool you are ready to play. Pull out the rolling pin and cookie cutters and have some fun. If you can't be bothered with all that effort try this:

A British History of Toys

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The concept of toys developed through a basic need to develop the skills children needed for life, much the same as kittens play fight to prepare themselves so did we. Therefore the early toys of the Dark Ages and Medieval period reflect what affected there lives such as war and hard labour. Mimicking adults and role play are not just fun but are developing the vital skills needed which back then was often life or death. This meant that children would mostly play with toy swords , weapons and tools. As life progressed so did the toys and by 1632 toys were being sold at market. By the 1700's toy shops were opened selling toys made by local craftsmen. People had money to spend and if they were lucky enough could afford a toy made from wood or fabric. Those who didn't have the money had homemade toys. Suddenly with all the emerging new industries a child's education and happiness became important. Common toys were dolls and musical instruments such as toy drums . In the 1760

History of the Classic Slinky Toy

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The slinky, (or Springy as it's also known) has been a classic toy that truly has stood the test of time. Have you ever wondered about the history of the slinky and how it became one of the nations favourite toys? The Slinky was created in 1943 by a naval engineer named Richard James, from Philadelphia. He was developing a meter designed to monitor horsepower on naval battleships, when a tension spring fell on the floor. He was fascinated by the way the spring kept moving after falling to the ground, and the metal slinky was born! The next two years was spent developing the classic toy, and it proved an immediate hit, when 400 units were sold at a 90 minute demonstration at Gimbels department store, Pennsylvania in Christmas 1945. The James Spring & Wire Company was formed soon after, with a working capital af just $500. Each metal springy is made with an astounding 80 feet of wire, and they are now made in Hollidayburg, Pennsylvania, still using the original machinery design

Paypal added as a payment option

When we started our business back in 2003, selling toys part-time on eBay, we used to accept paypal as our main method of payment. It is ideal for eBay addicts, and it is so much better than spending "real money" , especially if you sell on eBay too. Unfortunately, processing paypal payments was causing technical issues with our afilliate programs, and we sadly had to remove it. We recently changed our merchant provider from Nochex to Protx (who I would thouroughly recommend to anyone serious about setting up an online shop) and they have the facility to take payments via Paypal, in addition to the regular credit and debit cards. This is also arranged neatly on the same payment screen, and so it is a seamless flow through the checkout process. So, I am extremely pleased to announce that we can now accept Paypal as a payment method on the Toyday traditional and classic toys website. (Now all I need to worry about is the accounts but that's a whole other story...)