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