Saturday, November 19, 2011

Want to win a chance to get your favorite toy at the Larchmont Shop?

And have fun at the same time?  If the answer is yes to both of these questions, then stop by this Saturday and take part in our very first coloring exhibition.  Exhibition?  Yes, exhibition!  We're doing more than a contest... we want to see how creative our customers are and share their work with the neighborhood.  All you have to do is 1. Come by starting this Saturday (November 19th) and pick up a "Landis' Labyrinth Coloring Page", 2. Take it home, and write down on it what your favorite toy is and why, 3.  Draw your favorite toy in the wagon on the picture, 4. Color in as much of the picture as you want, 5. Write your name and age on it, and 6.  Bring the finished masterpiece back to us and we'll display it for all to see.  We'll be running this exhibition until December 3rd, and then we'll select our favorite entry!  Whoever is the lucky winner will be awarded a gift certificate to the Larchmont Village Landis' Labyrinth.  And keep in mind, we won't necessarily pick the drawing with the most "superior" art skills.  We're looking for creativity and expression, so surprise us.  If your favorite toy is a red play ball with yellow stars on it because it looks just like the one John used to have before his dog destroyed it on Groundhog Day, then please, tell us.  Even if you can't draw a star very well and they look more like spiders.  We still want it!  We're going to leave the age limit open, so all entries are welcome!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Our giraffe has a name and we have yet more new art kits!

So about the giraffe... you all remember Gerry, our very vigilant and tall guardian of the shop who spent countless hours greeting our customers as they stepped into the shop?  Well, earlier this year, he was given his due retirement and is now living happily with another giraffe and a very lucky little girl.  So naturally, the time came for us to hire a new giraffe to take over Gerry's duties.  We had many applicants, but we found our winner in General Rosie, a name suggested by one of our young customers for our new giraffe that won our poll this past week (Gus was a close second... maybe next year!).  As you might guess from the name, General Rosie is more than qualified to make sure that everyone has a great time when they come into Landis' Labyrinth, and will not tolerate anything but the best, at least until someone else comes in and offers her a chance to retire.  So rest assured, your next visit will be a good one, in no large part due to the ridiculous amount of art kits that we now have in stock.  In addition to the mountain of kits from Faber-Castell/Creativity for Kids, we also have a pretty awesome supply of kits in from Alex Toys, including a sewing machine and sticker maker!  These are always a big hit for the holidays, so we're happy they've come in so soon.  We also have a ton of bath toys from Alex, my favorite being the Dirty Dogs, which are dogs that are all covered with dirt stains that magically disappears when put in the bath.  IT'S MAGIC!  I also do love the Water Flutes, but I'm a sucker for any musical toys so that's just a given. 

Speaking of water, have we mentioned that's it's rained recently.  As in this past week?  As in probably many times in the next few months?  Never fear, Stephen Joseph is here!  Who is this Mr. Joseph, you may ask?  Only a great line of raincoats, rain boots, ponchos, umbrellas, wallets, and backpacks.  We have four styles of rain boots and jackets- owls, robots, pirates, and flowers, and some really fantastic Signature Collection Backpacks.  We also have the ever-popular wallets in from them, including a pirate octopus that I would beg my parents for if I was still 9. 

We've noticed this past week that people are already picking up gifts for children's charities for the holidays.  It's an absolutely selfless act of kindness that we applaud, not because it means sales for us, but because everyday we see children in tears because they can't get the toy they want.  The children benefiting from these charities aren't even afforded the opportunity to go into a toy store and yearn for a new toy, which makes it all the more important to recognize how special it is to help out whenever we can.  It can be quite difficult to figure out what a child you've never met, and will likely never meet, will want for a gift, but we'll do our best to show you things that we know children similar to them love.  So don't be shy about asking us for help!  We've talked to hundreds (thousands?) of kids and their parents, so we have a fairly good idea of what they like, and we're under no obligation to keep this info secret! 

Sunday, November 6, 2011

And so the rain continues...

But we're nice and warm and dry inside the toy shop, so all is well!  We've noticed a lot of art kits making their way home with some very appreciative children, especially some of the new Creativity for Kids kits (the Shrinky Dinks are flying out the door).  We've also discovered that Play-Doh is a great idea for the younger folks stuck at home with a cold.  Being two is hard when you can't run around.... Play-Doh seems to be the chicken soup of the toy world!

Some other ideas for those of you who'd like to go home with a fun family activity to keep your mind off of the puddles outside?  Puzzles and board games!  Even we oftentimes forget our puzzle area when recommending items in the shop, so I'll give it a shout out now.  Most of our puzzles are from the brand Ravensburger, which, if you're unfamiliar with them, is one of the best puzzle makers out there.  Their art is gorgeous, and it covers a wide variety of subjects, from Highlights-branded puzzles to scenic landscapes to animals.  They also provide puzzles for all ages, something the whole family can appreciate.  I personally believe that most age recommendations are a bit off when it comes to puzzles, so don't shy away from a 6+ if your child is 4 or 5.  If they are detail-oriented and focused, they'll have a great time putting the picture together and it's a great way to encourage those skills.  We also carry puzzles from Melissa & Doug, including a new chunky puzzle for the 1-2 year old set featuring vehicles.  It's recommended for 2 years and up, but we've learned that most parents opt to start introducing the chunky puzzle around 12 months.  They can't quite put the pieces in the proper place, but they love taking them out of the puzzle and playing with them.  As their development continues, they figure out how to put the pieces back, so it's really a great learning tool that grows with them as they get older.

Board games are absolutely a go-to when it comes to rainy, cold days.  Chutes and Ladders is perfect for younger children, as well as Poppa's Pizza Pile Up (a balancing game), Feeding Froggies (similar to Hungry Hungry Hippos), and Froghoppers (a very simple game... the goal is to get your frogs in the bucket.  Just press on the frog's back it "hops" up.), not to mention Tiddlywinks, which I'm convinced 5 year olds are specially designed to be better than adults at.  One new favorite of ours is Top Trumps.  Like many new toys/games, this one first garnered attention on the East Coast and the U.K., and became a huge seller there.  We were one of the first shops out here to carry this line, and while it got off to a slow start this spring, we had faith that our customers would love it just as much as we do, and boy have they ever!  We received a new shipment in last month, and we can't believe how many of our customers have really gotten on board with this game.  So what is this game?  Remember the classic card game 'War' (if no, it's where you split a deck in half, and you each put down the card at the top of your pile and whoever has the higher value card takes both cards.  You then play until one person has all of the cards and wins)?  This a variation of that game.  Instead of just playing the card on top of your deck and going by the higher value, this game uses a variety of facts with values attached to them to play.  Each set has a theme, such as Harry Potter, Bugs, Go-Go's Crazy Bones, Baby Animals, etc.  Each player gets a certain number of cards, and each card has different facts on them.  For example, in Baby Animals, the facts could be weight at birth, average lifespan, cuteness factor, and whoever leads picks the animal they have with the highest stat in one of these categories.  If you have an elephant, let's say, you can be fairly confident that its weight at birth with 'trump' any of your opponents animal weights.  So you can put that card down, say the category is weight, and if you're correct, you take their losing card(s).  Whoever ends up with all of the cards wins!  Designed for 2-6 players, this is a quick, compact, and educational game.  It's easy to learn, and a lot of fun to discover new facts about your favorite things.  And for only $8.95, it's hard to say no to! 

Friday, November 4, 2011

It's going to be a big month for re-orders at Landis' Labyrinth

After checking through our order book, I think it's safe to say we're going to be well-stocked for the holidays.  Just to give you an idea of what's coming in this month (I have no idea where we're going to put it all), we have re-orders of the classic Fisher Price toys (yay Chatter Phone!), Hasbro (yay Beyblades/Strawberry Shortcake/Mousetrap/etc.!), ThinkFun Games (Chocolate Fix, anyone?), Alex (we can't have too many art kits this time of the year), Viewmaster (forget the iPad... this is where the real magic is), and Blue Orange Games, whose games we will be featuring in our post-Thanksgiving weekend spectacular!  Notice how we didn't say sale?  Now that we are entering our third holiday season, we're taking what we've learned over the past two years and hopefully coming up with something that will be way more exciting than a sale.  Our customers that come in on Black Friday come in because they want to avoid early-morning doorbusters and scrambling to get the hot ticket items.  So we're giving you what you want... a nice, relaxing day in the toy store with games to play (that's right, we'll be teaching you how to play some of our favorite board and card games), and art projects to do to get you in the right mood for the holidays.  We'll even have some warm beverages on hand to really make it festive!  None of this breaking down the door nonsense... just fun.  And if you do decide to start shopping, we'll of course be there to help you find the perfect gift, and we'll have both Christmas and Hanukkah gift bags so you won't even have to worry about wrapping.  So think about checking in over the next month and taking down notes on what your little ones are begging for, because believe me, we'll have more than enough toys for you to remember by December!

All this rain means it's time to break out the art kits and get creative!

Good thing we have the whole art section filled up with Faber-Castell, Creativity for Kids, and Melissa & Doug.  We even have Shrinky Dinks back in stock finally, so you can both make yourself some snazzy new accessories, and use your oven in the process and really warm up your home!  My personal favorite (beside the Melissa & Doug Paint Your Own Rubber Duck... I don't think anything can top that) is the Creativity for Kids Wee Enchanted Garden.  Not only does it come with gnomes you can paint, but it comes with seeds to plant and a little house for your gnome to call home and make terrible rhymes in. 

We also have a few new Ugly Dolls happily awaiting to be brought home and loved.  We're all big fans of the newest line from them, Citizens, which is basically a special series of Ugly Dolls that are only available in that size (the size is in between the Lil Uglies and the Classic Size).  They're a great size for gifts, and well-priced at $16.95 each.

But back to art.... remember Klutz?  That awesome line of activity books that teach you everything from how to make pom-pom animals to directing your own film?  Well it's back, and just in time for you early holiday shoppers (keep in mind, we only carry a limited amount of stock of each item due to our shop size so once we're out, we likely won't get more back in before Christmas and Hanukkah)!  Some of my own favorite kits are back, such as the Glossy Bands and Face Painting Kit, but we also have a ton of new books to check out.  One I actually quite like is the Look Book, which, despite my not being a girly-girl, I think is really a great guide on how to draw clothing and to shade facial features, something that I struggled with when I was little and would have loved to use as a reference. 

If this post seems a bit more skewed towards girls, it's probably because I just finished doing up the "boy" merchandise window, so I think subconsciously I'm trying to balance things out!  But I've got to say, the new Thomas items we have in are pretty awesome, in particular, the Light Up Aquarium Car, which actually does light up to show off the marine life cargo the trains are transporting.  And we are still offering a free Thomas gift with any $40+ Thomas purchase.   I believe I also forgot to point out the newest vehicle from Green Toys... the School Bus.  We constantly get asked for toy school buses, but for the most part, they're rather difficult to find from the vendors we order from.  So we were extra excited that one of our favorite companies, Green Toys, came up with one!  Safe for 1 year and up, this is sure to be a big hit with the kids in the neighborhood. 

It's been a quiet week for shipments, but that'll change soon.  Keep checking back for more updates, and come by this weekend and let us know how your Halloween was!