We’ve been very busy recently adding a lot more products to our existing lines.
Here is a small guide to our favourite Sigikid new additions.
1. Rabbit Soft Toy
I absolutely love this bunny soft toy. He’s wonderfully vibrant and colourful with crazy long ears and definitely strikes me as having ‘favourite teddy’ potential.
2. Organic Owl Music Toy
This cute owl music toy will play the soothing melody of Brahms Lullaby to comfort your little tigers. The owl itself is lovely and soft and made from 100% certified organically cultivated cotton.
3. Flower and Bee Stacking Toy
Stacking toys are brilliant to help develop hand eye coordination and learning through play and this one in particular is extremely bright, soft and colourful. Perfect.
4. Organic Rabbit Comforter
Comforters make a great first toy for your little ones and this organic bunny is no exception. With a stripey blue and white body and red gingham bunny ears, this happy rabbit is sure to put a smile on your little tigers face.
As you may be aware we recently changed our website completely, moving from older web design software to the latest WordPress and WooCommerce technology to power Little Tiger Gifts.
This was driven mainly by our expansion and the need to quickly add new products. It seems not a week goes by when we are not expanding our ranges to include new Moulin Roty or Sigikid products. In addition to our expansion we wanted to provide our customers with a better experience and I hope we have achieved that.
One thing we noticed upon moving to WordPress was the fact that our site became slower due to the shared hosting we were using. Something had to change…
After careful research we came across FreshSites. FreshSites are a UK based hosting company specialising in WordPress – something which our new site uses. So without further delay we changed hosting providers and moved our site to a shiny new faster server. The results speak for themselves. Our site is now much, much faster than before and we are really pleased.
I wanted to write a quick post about FreshSites to not only to let our customers know that we work hard to provide a great experience for them but also to praise the customer service that FreshSites have provided. It has been excellent from the start as they took care of everything and have continued to provide us with support that I simply never received from our previous hosting provider.
Our new hosting also provides us with the ability to control more server settings allowing us to move our website forward and innovate more. As you may be aware, all website design and developement is done in-house at Little Tiger Gifts which means we have full control on the website experience (we have tried to make the website as easy to use as possible).
If you are looking for a new hosting company for your website or blog, we cannot recommend FreshSites highly enough. They can be found at the following website – https://freshsites.co.uk/
I must add that we are in no way connected to FreshSites, we just wanted to share the fact that we have had some great customer service from them recently (in fact the customer service has been brilliant from day one).
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!
Robin Rattle
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.
1. Dog Alphabet Puzzle
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.
2. Cream Tea Set
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.
3. Paddington Skittles
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.
4. Peter Rabbit Push Along
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.
5. Pull Along Steam Train
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’ve all been aware of organic food for a long time but what about organic cotton?
According to Sigikid Organic Cotton Means –
Certified biological cultivation of cotton
Renewable resources
Eco-friendly and human-ecological production
No chemical fertilisers
Short, environmentally friendly transport routes
No genetically modified organisms
No ecologically harmful substances
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.
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!
We are very pleased to welcome Truly Dotty to Little Tiger Gifts. Truly Dotty is run by Hayley Barker and they are a local company based in Suffolk.
Truly Dotty make wonderful hand made fabric items including bunting, cushions, wash bags, gym bags, laundry bags and aprons which can all be personalised with a name or a word.
Truly Dotty products are a bit of an exclusive for us as we are the only on-line retailer to sell these fantastic products. We are also very happy to support a local manufacturer.
We have just reduced our fabulous Teddykompaniet range of Diinglisar Wild products and you can now save 20% off marked prices for the entire range.
Our Teddykompaniet range features Babies Bib’s, Soft Toys, Pram Toys and Rattles. Come and visit our TeddyKompaniet page and grab yourself a great bargain. Check out the cute Tiger Bib:
We are very pleased to bring you our latest brand, Sigikid. All the way from Germany, you can expect wonderful soft toys and newborn gifts as well as fun and educational games to brightly coloured bags and lunch boxes.
Not only do we love their products but we also feel their ethos is a perfect match for Little Tiger Gifts.
Whilst I’m sure no encouragement will be needed, to celebrate Sigikid’s arrival we will be offering a discount of 20% on all their products for September. The deduction will be automatically applied at the checkout, so no need to worry about entering discount codes.
So take a look at Sigikid here We hope you love them as much as we do…
2. Organic Owl Music Toy
