When I was pregnant with Florence I was convinced that we would only have traditional wooden toys in our house. I had visions of old-fashioned rocking horses and her skipping down the street with a hoop. Obviously when she was born it quickly became apparent that although she did very much like the wooden toys, she would also like to have some all singing, all dancing plastic tat! The carefully selected toys I had chosen to compliment our living room interior just weren’t always cutting the mustard and we resigned ourselves to plastic flashing noise but it has recently come to my attention that perhaps the best of both worlds is achievable. There’s a lovely toy website, www.dollshouses.co.uk who provide just what I’ve been looking for and in fact, exactly what the little ones are after too! Imagine that? Lovely, vintage looking toys, made from wood which satisfy the needs of both the children and the adults!
Now, a lot of what ‘Dollshouses.co.uk’ sell are, as the name suggests, dolls houses and girlie things. They supply toys made by the likes of Le Toy Van (which are one of my favourites) and are a little girls dream toy store. But the boys and girls who aren’t so much in to pink are not at all forgotten for there are plenty of trucks, tanks and castles to play with too! Take a look at the Construction Set by Le Toy Van for example. I have this set and have to say how utterly delightful it is! When it comes to diggers and steam rollers a lot of toys are quite brash and plastic with not much durability but these ones are mainly wooden with only certain features being in plastic. They are so much less garish, so much more traditional and yet don’t take away from what they are meant to be at all – they are very realistic! I looked at this set and I don’t know any little person who wouldn’t be pleased to play with it!
Not only are Le Toy Van toys beautifully presented in the box as above but they are delightful toys to play with and look at for us parents!
The toys that ‘Dollshouses.co.uk’ sell, just like this one, incorporate the best of both worlds because they are traditionally made and painted beautifully while at the same time being very modern and desirable for little people! My daughter has a Le Toy Van Honey Bake Oven and not only is it a beautiful item which I don’t mind seeing in my living room but it has such potential for role play and can be added to with all the gorgeous wooden food meaning she now has a bit of a collection! I just love the cakes! I’m sure its entirely likely that Jimmy won’t enjoy playing with Florence’s pink oven (although I don’t mind in the slightest if he does) so it’s great then that I can get ‘boys toys’ which are just as beautiful like the construction set. These toys have the benefit of being well made and attractive yet they are exactly what a little boy would like! We’ve moved on from children skipping in velvet suits while they play with their one toy hoop but we don’t have to over crowd our houses with gaudy looking plastic. I do think everything has it’s place and sometimes a big plastic toy or a computer is just the ticket but isn’t it lovely to have toys like these too.
The construction set is typical of the type of toys sold by ‘Dollshouses.co.uk’ and as you can see attention to every detail has been paid in the painting.
So, just because they are wooden toys doesn’t mean that they are not all singing and dancing! Florence’s oven has a clock with hands that can be moved round and dials and buttons to twiddle. She likes it very much and she uses her imagination for noises it might make. The trucks in the construction set have moving parts and are entirely maneuverable for play. They’re just lovely.
As you can see from the pictures above, the digger scoops move, the crane has a hook which can be used and the dumper truck can be filled and lifted up to dump the contents. It’s very charming.
Buying lovely toys like this with ‘Dollshouses.co.uk’ and you can expect quality with a very reasonable price (compared to some high street shops stocking the same toys they are quite a way under). You can also expect a swift delivery. After mine arrived I was emailed a questionnaire to ask how the transaction went, so it’s great to know they actually care about their customer’s experiences. No wonder the set arrived seamlessly. When I’m buying traditional wooden toys from now on it will be ‘Dollshouses.co.uk’ that I go to as my first port of call!
One of my favourite things on their site is the collection of wooden Noah’s Arks! They’re so gorgeous and I also can’t wait to get Florence a dolls house, they have SUCH adorable ones it’s hard to choose which one I like best! It’s worth noting they also sell bargain bundles where you can choose dolls houses with all the furniture and people, there are lots of different sets to choose from and it saves lots of money!
For more information on the construction set, all the toys I have mentioned and the entire range stocked by www.dollshouses.co.uk please click on the link to their website.
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