Last time I went to see Hayley from Truly Dotty I took a slightly battered soft toy with me in the hope she could repair her.
Mousie was mine when I was younger and is now very much loved by my daughter Ella. Poor Mousie hasn’t aged too well and had lost both her feet, a hand and her nose was about to fall off.
However after a short stay with Hayley she is now back to her best.
In true makeover style I present you with the before and after photos!!!!!
So, continuing on from our last blog post, I wanted to talk about my favourite new additions from the wonderful Hazel Village.
I have to give ballet loving Ella Toad a mention. Not only do I love her but she is also the favourite of my daughter. Also called Ella and also ballet loving (not a toad though). Somehow it didn’t take long before one ended up on her bed!
One of the lovely things about the Hazel Village gang is that the are all about the same size. This means they can swap and share outfits. Not only do they all come with a wonderful outfit, you can purchase additional ones including this Tiger costume. Again, how could I not give this a mention!
This Robin rattle really would make a lovely first toy for your little one. This fine feathered friend is made from organic cotton and has a rattle in his tummy just ready to comfort and soothe. It’s the perfect size for small hands to grasp.
You may have noticed that we have been very busy adding lots of new products to our website by all our fabulous brands.
So starting with Orange Tree Toys, we thought we would give you a quick guide to our favourite new additions.
This colourful Wooden Dog Alphabet Puzzle is made from chunky wooden pieces which are perfect for little hands to grasp. Each piece has a different letter on it, making it a fun way for your little tigers to learn the alphabet.
This delightful Wooden Cream Tea Set is hand painted in pretty pastel shades of greens and blues. It includes a 2 tier cake stand with delicious cupcakes and scones. Perfect to encourage role play and get imaginations flowing.
We absolutely love Paddington Bear, so of course we love these Wooden Paddington Skittles. Beautifully made and hand painted in bright blue and red, your little ones will have lots of fun knocking them over, time and time again.
Mixing a classic children’s character with a classic children’s toy gets wonderful results. This lovely hand crafted wooden Peter Rabbit Push Along Toy is beautifully made and is perfect to encourage those first all important steps.
This bright red wooden replica Victorian Steam Train really is fit for a Prince. In fact the eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted that Prince George was pictured with his in the Royal Christmas card for 2015. See, it really is fit for a Prince.
We’re so delighted to launch our new responsive website.
We’ve tried very hard to keep a similar look and feel to our previous website whilst also making sure the website is easy to navigate and use.
I hope we’ve succeeded.
It was really imperative we created the new website to allow us to add on new products much quicker as we continue our growth over the next few years.
With that in mind, I currently have an office full of new stock to add to the website by Orange Tree Toys, Moulin Roty, Sigikid and Hazel Village.
I’ve already made a start and am delighted with our new Paddington Bear and Peter Rabbit wooden toys by Orange Tree Toys.
We’ve all been aware of organic food for a long time but what about organic cotton?
According to Sigikid Organic Cotton Means –
Quite simply organic cotton is grown in a way which uses methods and materials that have a low impact on the environment and without chemicals, fertilisers and pesticides.
So for anyone that would like to purchase a toy made from organic cotton we stock the wonderful Hazel Village. This lovely woodland range are all made from organic cotton and stuffed with hypoallergenic polyfill.
Alternatively we also stock a range of organic soft toys from Sigikid. They are made from 100% certified organic cotton and filled with lambswool. Whilst we only stock a few items at the moment we have plans to expand this range in the coming year.
We’ve just added two great families to our already extensive Moulin Roty range.
First is their new nursery range for 2015, La Papoum. This jungle inspired collection features lions, hippos and elephants in lovely creams and beiges with touches of yellow, red and blue.
We’ve chosen a lovely selection of soft toys, rattles and comforters which you and your little ones will love.
Secondly we’re bringing you Les Tartempois. This really is Moulin Roty at its best. A quirky range, beautifully made with lots of lovely detail. Whilst this is a new range for us at Little Tigers, the dangly soft toys have been available for a while and they have now extended the range to include rattles and comforter.
We hope you like our selection.
As Moulin Roty continue to produce new families and extend popular ranges it does sometimes mean saying goodbye to some of our old favourites. So we will be saying a fond farewell to Biscotte et Pompon, Myrtille & Capucine and Basile et Lola. The good news is we still have a few items available in these ranges, so hurry as they won’t last long.
We are delighted to have been awarded the Good Practice award from Let Toys Be Toys for the second year running.
Little Tiger Gifts support the Let Toys Be Toys campaign to stop the toy and publishing industries limiting children’s interests by promoting some toys as only suitable for girls, and others for boys.
Take a look at the Let Toys Be Toys website for more info – https://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/toymark/
8th July 2015 – We’re delighted to let you know that our competition has been won by Natalie from Lancashire.
The correct answer was that Oliver mouse plays the accordion (and any other variation on spelling was accepted!)
Thank you to everyone who entered.
Its competition time at Little Tiger Gifts!
To celebrate the arrival of our new brand Hazel village we are giving away a fantastic Emma Rabbit soft doll worth over £34
To win, click on over to https://www.littletigergifts.co.uk and answer the simple question.
Good luck!
I was really excited to sit down with Hayley Barker from Truly Dotty over coffee and cake to find out a bit more about bunting, being amazingly creative and the highs and lows of self-employment.
Hayley lives in a Suffolk village with her husband Brett and two girls Mia (14) and Tegan (12). Having always made soft furnishings for her own home, family and friends, a year ago Hayley finally took the plunge and started Truly Dotty. Which is lucky for us, as it means we now get to have her lovely designs in our homes as well.
Having always been a slightly envious of anyone who can take just a few simple items and turn them into something beautiful I jumped at the chance to have a chat with Hayley and see where she gets her inspiration from.
Q. What made you decide to set up Truly Dotty?
A. I’ve always really enjoyed sewing and creating beautiful pieces for not only my home, but friends and family. My girls were getting older and I was ready for a new challenge. It seemed like an ideal opportunity to start my own business.
Q. Where do you get your ideas from?
A. I get my ideas from my surroundings. Even the smallest of items can inspire me. I love looking through magazines and can spend hours looking for the right fabric.
I really enjoyed designing the range for Little Tiger Gifts and I knew it was important to make items that appealed to both parents and children. Hopefully I have succeeded.
Q. All your items can be personalised by Hand Applique. Can you just explain what that actually means?
A. Quite simply, Applique is a crafting technique in which small pieces of fabric are sewn onto a larger piece of fabric. This can either be done on a sewing machine or by hand and it’s this method that I use to personalise my orders.
Q. What are the challenges of being self-employed?
A. Although compared to a lot of new businesses the start-up cost were relatively low, it was still scary spending money and not knowing if I’d make it back.
It’s also been a challenge getting my products out there. Crafts fairs have been good initially and now appearing on the Little Tiger Gifts website has meant that I can reach a much wider market.
Q. What are the benefits of being self-employed?
A. I definitely feel a real sense of achievement from turning my hobby into a business. My customers are lovely and so complimentary about the items I make for them.
I’m always a little surprised at how much creative freedom they are willing to give me with custom orders. Some have quite a detailed brief whilst others will just tell me the colour and leave the rest up to me. It’s really flattering that they trust me so much although it can be a little nerve racking when I hand their order over. So far I’ve only had happy customers.
Q. Finally what’s next for Truly Dotty?
A. I’ve been really pleased with how things have gone but over the next year I would like to build the business up via the website and try to engage more on social media.
I have started to get repeat orders from previous customers and so to build on that would also be great.
It’s definitely important to keep up with new trends and I currently have two new bag designs to promote plus a very busy summer of craft fairs.
I would like to thank Hayley for taking the time to talk to me and I’m looking forward to seeing these new bags!
Over the past few years we have been adding to our range of newborn and baby gifts from Moulin Roty and Sigikid.
It was only after adding some new additions to our ever popular Moulin Roty range that I realised just how many gifts for newborns and babies we actually have!
Listed below are our five main categories of products:
We have over 13 different types of rattles from Moulin Roty and Sigikid. All of which make that all important ‘rattle’ noise. Our range of rattles help babies experience texture and shape, in addition to this they focus a babies attention on their hands and controlling movement.
The hen rattle shown below is from our new Les Cousins range of products from Moulin Roty
Our range of squeaky toys from Moulin Roty again help babies experience texture, shape and sound. In fact even some adults could not resist having a squeeze on our Moulin Roty Squeaky toy!
We also stock over 10 different types of high quality baby comforters, ranging from a donkey comforter from Moulin Roty’s Biscotte et Pompon family to an organic bunny comforter from Sigikid. Some of our comforters come complete with teethers and soother holders as well.
Our range of activity toys from Sigikid are all durable, very high quality and above all fun! Sigikid activity toys stimulate mental and physical development along with development of hand, eye coordination.
In addition we also have a great range of baby slippers and soft toys suitable for newborns, babies and toddlers.
We hope you like our range of gifts. You can see our complete newborn gift range on the following page https://www.littletigergifts.co.uk/cat/little-tiger-gifts-newborn-gifts/ for soft toys look no further than our Moulin Roty page https://www.littletigergifts.co.uk/brands/moulin_roty/
