I Spy....A Toy Store!

Another exciting activity that is part of working at the Fairhaven Toy Garden is constructing a variety of window displays. Since we have a corner location we have a lot of windows, which means plenty of space to create different scenes and images with any of our products. Recently, fellow employee, Ben and I built a display in one of our front windows. It consists of a little doll and the assortment of creatures and automobiles within her dream. Not only is this a magical sight to behold, but it has also been turned into a game! There is a chalkboard in the background with a list of different objects to discover. Find them all, come in and tell us and you receive a prize!

Reuies: Reusable Snack and Sandwich Bags

It's back-to-school time and the Fairhaven Toy Garden has all sorts of fun and nessessary items for your child's backpack. One of our new favorite products are Reusies. Made by a group of moms locally in Seattle, Washington, Reusies are a new green way to pack lunches. The fabric comes in many different, creative patterns and colors. It is 100% cotton with a leak resistant nylon liner that is PVC, lead, BPA and phthalate free. Reusies can be washed along side either your dishes or laundry. These great bags save hundreds of plastic bags from being thrown away and eliminate the contact of plastic and your favorite meal.

Product Review: Guac Ball

One of the employees' new favorite toys is the Official Guac Ball. This weighted beach ball comes in three different colors (pink, blue or the traditional green) all complete with a funny face. Simply "remove ball from bag and inflate with your face" and you have a new, crazy toy that will provide hours of endless silly entertainment. Play inside or out, with others or by yourself, the Guac Ball can go anywhere and do anything (almost). Used in many different science projects, the Guac Ball is not just fun, but educational and can help in the understanding of anything from physics to baseball. Tune in to our Facebook soon for a video.

Kid's Club: Part 2 - The Preparation

One of the on-going sections of the Kids' Club is the Kid of the Month. All of the members are entered in a drawing and each month, one is selected to be The Fairhaven Toy Garden Kid of the Month. The winning child's picture gets hung up on a bulletin board in our store for all to see. Now, we didn't want just a plain old, everyday board for all the special kids who are afforded this honor, so we decided to come up with something unique. Local artist and long-time Toy Gardener, Carol Hewitt helped me create the masterpiece that is now in our store. I found an old cork board that my parents had in storage and brought it in. Carol painted the wooden frame in our store colors. Together, we arranged and hot-glued on a collection of miniature toys and gadgets that Carol had been saving. The result was fantastic. Come visit our store to see the final product in person!

Kid's Club: Part 1 - The Festivities

Have you signed your kids up for the Fairhaven Toy Garden's Kids' Club?? It's pretty awesome. Once a month, we have an activity in the store where members can come in hang out with us and participate in a variety of activities. It's different each time and a whole lot of fun. The first one was held on Wednesday, June 23rd. The kids got to see first hand what it's like to be a Toy Gardener. They got a tour of the warehouse and the store, experiencing what goes on behind the scenes; ringing up sales, decorating the outside of the store with sidewalk chalk and checking out the beautiful view from our roof, just to name a few. Sign up in the store and come play with us!

Product Review: Baby Beads

As summer approaches (yes, even in Bellingham) a lot of people are taking vacations or going to visit family. The plane rides involved in these adventures can be long and very boring, especially for your little one. It has become increasingly difficult to find something simple, safe, and relatively quite to keep babies preoccupied on the trip. My new favorite thing to suggest for these inquiring parents is a set of Natural Classic Baby Beads by Manhattan Toy. The beads are made from rubberwood and furnished with a non-toxic, water based finish. They are soft to the touch and safe to go in their mouths.The elastic cord allows for the child to transform the beads into any desired shape or alignment. I personally am even more than mildly amused by them. And your fellow passengers won't be bothered by any noise. I was really impressed by the entertainment provides by something so simple.

Children's Parties at the Toy Garden

Over the past year, the Toy Garden has unoffically put on several birthday parties for children by the request of their parents. I had the opportunity to participate in one of these this last Saturday, June 5th. Avery and her entourage celebrated her 5th (golden) birthday in the store. As the guests arrived, they were sent on the hunt for the gnomes in teams. Once aquiring their captives, they were given a pocket kite as a price and got in line for face painting. Everyone wanted a princess necklace, except one girl who asked for a shark. We then traveled down to The Green and flew the kites. Next was story time at Village Books where the children relaxed on comfy pillows while I read Princess Hyacinth. The party concluded with cupcakes and presents at Katie's Cupcakes. We had a great time planning and putting on the party! If you are interested in having your child's party with us contact us at (360) 714-8552.

Last Workshop of the Season

On Saturday, May 22nd, the last felting workshop of the season was held in the store. It was for the felted toad stools. Unfortunately, only one participate showed up, but it was very fun! Tabytha and I had a great time creating our own new species of mushrooms. She deemed her's a new discovery from the world of Pandora (from this spring's film, Avatar). Mine very much resembled a creature from Mario Brothers. Pop culture references aside, we had a blast inventing our fungi! Join us this coming fall for more workshops. Details coming soon!

Things I Have Learned

Over the past four month of my employment with the Fairhaven Toy Garden, I have learned some random things not necessarily related to toys. When a man came in with a broken accordion, I used an eye glasses screw driver to take it apart. Certain parts had been shifted by the owner filling it with raisins, causing the buttons to stick. I discovered how the buttons and pads work together in just the right way to create the music. And that it is definitely not a good place to store spare raisins. I have learned to recognize different makes and models of cars from our toy car collection and even some airplanes as well. My knowledge of geography and vocabulary range have both expanded from learning to play games. I have a free continuing education :)

The Gnomes are Everywhere!

May was a busy month filled with weekend events. Our garden gnomes, Toggin, Trixie and Tuck, were out adventuring during each one! The anniversary was a big hit. The weather cooperated, giving us a fresh day of sun and blue skies. Lot of families were in the store, spinning the wheel out front to win prizes and playing other games with the gnomes and gardeners. This was also the kick-off of the Kid's Club (inquire at the store for details). A section of Girls' Night Out was also hosted at the Toy Garden where lots of trivia games were explored by the ladies of Fairhaven and our handsome employees. For Junior Ski to Sea, our store was the last float in the parade, lead by Toggin, Tuck and Trixie handing out toys and cheer, followed by a horse drawn carriage carrying waving children and mothers. Check out our Facebook for more pictures. We are very excited for June and more events to come!

Felted Flower Workshop

Hello All!

Last Saturday I taught a workshop on felted flowers. As so often happens in our workshops, the project morphed into something new for several participants. The original idea was a flower on a stem to put in a vase, but we ended up with a brooch as well as a hair clip, and they were all beautiful! I really enjoy this about our workshops. Everyone is encouraged to follow their own creative path, and children are usually the most creative of all!

Robin

Little Boxes

Recently, I have been working at the Toy Garden head quarters processing and preparing items to mail out. The store gets orders from the website and Amazon. We also offer shipping for products purchased in the store. It is always a fun and difficult task to find just the right box for each order. I carefully look through the copious amounts of collapsed cardboard, hoping to find the perfect fit. The hardest are the small things, especially anything long and thin like a growth chart or book. It's not as easy was you would think and I am overjoyed upon discovering an exact match. Over the last couple days, I became aware of my constant, subconscious look out for little boxes. A care-package arrived for me the other day from my mother containing a generous collection of goodies (candy, tea, slippers, etc.) and all I could think was, "Man, that is a perfect box!"

Birthday Party!

The store has been buzzing with excitement! Dirty Dan Days was definitely a success. The gnomes were running through out the festivities. Did you catch a glimpse of them? If not, check out the videos posted on Facebook in which we were able to capture of them in action. Also, tons of felted balls were made down on the Green. We are now preparing for the anniversary for the store. The Toy Garden is about to celebrate its 4th birthday on May 8th! Come by and play with us, try to spot the gnomes and get your face painted by Carol and me. I'm excellent with animal faces :)

Teaching and Learning

Hello again. I've finished my first few felted toadstools and I am pretty proud of them. To see what they look like, visit our workshops page and see the picture! I am teaching a workshop May 22nd on how to make them! I am also developing my skills with the Whirl-O, the magnetic yo-yo. It's a lot of fun! Not to mention, slightly easier for me to master than a regular yo-yo. We're getting ready in the store for several really cool events coming up. Dirty Dan Days and Girls' Night Out are in the next couple weeks and it's been fascinating to hear everyone's ideas, not just in our store, but all throughout Fairhaven. Not only am I new to the store, but also fairly new to the Bellingham area, making this the first year for me to witness either function! Hope to see you there!

New!

Hello! I am Libby. Over the last few weeks, I have begun my adventure as a Toy Gardener at the Fairhaven Toy Garden! It has been very exciting so far. I have been learning all the different brands that produce and manufacture the various toys and games that we carry. There is so much to know! All the companies have such fun and creative toys and I have many new favorites; it’s like reliving my childhood. It has been a lot of fun to meet and talk to all the different people who come in to play with us from all walks of life and age groups. Currently, I am learning to play Settlers of Catan and The Scrambled States of America Game. Both very invigorating and challenging! I have also been learning to felt. I took a workshop on making swans and am now attempting to make little toadstools on my own. I'll let you know what I try next!

Last Day at Toy Show

Our last day at the Western States Toy and Hobby Show was exciting. We put in several orders and reorders, but continued to find new products. Where will it all go?! Maybe we will have a sale - out with the old, in with the new. One new addition was play tents and tunnels from Pacific Play Tents. Look at the Space Station. Maybe I could be the first sock monkey on a carabiner to go to outer space! And check out the train tunnel. Can you tell I like to travel? Then we found a booth called Bullyland that was offering an amazing variety of latex rubber animals and figures. Toggin and I liked the jungle animals best, but the dragons and dinosaurs were really cool too!

Day 3

Toggin is here!
He could not stand it anymore and finally jumped out of Robin's pocket to explore with me at the Blue Orange games booth. We found these funky purple chickens to play with, but they seemed to have balancing problems and we soon found out why they were part of a game called Chickyboom. We also spent a long time at the Back Alley Traders booth who are bringing Gigamic games back into the USA again. Soon Quarto and Quoridor will be back on the shelves of the Fairhaven Toy Garden. Our other cool find of the day was P'kolino. Check this out

Toby in Southern California

Greetings Toy Garden Friends!

Day 1 at the Western Toy and Hobby Show was loads of fun! I even met another monkey just my size who took me for a ride in his race car. We met him at the Lilliputiens booth, where they had many clever soft toys for young children. Later, we found something really new for the store that you may be seeing soon on the walls of Fairhaven Toy Garden. RoomMates resusable wall stickers will liven up any room in your house. Click on this link to see their many choices.
My favorite was the monkey stickers of course! I hung around on Tina's bag perusing the aisles of toys for several hours until I finally got to hit the beach again at the Be Good Company's sand box display. Look at their new models this year.
A Fairy Garden and Knights & Dragons! Coming soon to Fairhaven Toy Garden. It was a fabulous day, but I have been missing my friends, Tuck, Trixie and Toggin. I might have been seeing things, but for a moment today, I thought I saw Toggin peeking out of Robin's pocket! Has anyone seen him at the store lately?
Toby the Blue Sock Monkey

News from the Western Toy and Hobby Show

Hi Toy Garden Fans,

I am tagging along this week with Fairhaven Toy Garden owners Robin Bigelow and
Tina Schwindt and employees Robin and Erin Schwindt. I have a handy device on my
hat called a carabiner which allows me to sneak onto Tina's laptop case when she travels to toy shows. This year's show is in Long Beach, California and the weather here is warm and sunny compared to the rain we left in Bellingham on Thursday. The show starts on Saturday, so we spent Friday exploring the attractions of the Long Beach area. We went for a walk on the boardwalk at The Pike and I narrowly escaped being kidnapped by a pirate who wanted me to replace his long lost shoulder riding parrot. He was threatening us with his gun and then Erin quickly snapped a picture with her magic camera and he turned into a statue! Then we went to Seal Beach south of Long Beach which was rather windy, but we did briefly test the waters of the Pacific Ocean and rested in the sand. Now we are ready for a full day at the Western Toy and Hobby Show at the Long Beach Convention Center. We are hoping to find some new and exciting toys to add to the shelves of the Fairhaven Toy Garden. If only my pals Trixie, Tuck and Toggin could have made the trip with us - it would be nice to have someone to hang out with that was more my size!

Toby the Blue Sock Monkey

New Features on our Website

Greetings and good day readers,

I would like to invite you to help us populate the product review feature on our web site www.FairhavenToyGarden.com. on the bottom of the product page you can choose to review our product. You will have to log into your account to be able to do so. Don't forget to give it a rating!
Your comments will not appear right away. We do need to ok them. We will publish all reviews, good or bad, except those which have offensive context or language.
To get reviews posted to our web site is beneficial to our customers as well as ourselves. It will help the customer to make a more educated decision. For us, as the owners of www.FairhavenToyGarden.com, it will show us what you think about the product and hence help us make buying decisions. Also it will increase the perceived credibility of our business.
It will take all of us to write a few to fill it up in a reasonable time. So if you have a minute or two, go on our site and write a review for your favorite product.

Thank you very much and have a great day!

Roland