Gifted Originals

If Disney thought being the highest grossing, most critically acclaimed film of the year was something to be proud of, then Gifted Originals is sure its latest accolade will make the film makers burst with pride.

Toy Story 3 has won the Golden Tomato Award from the website Rotten Tomatoes. The achievement in film is bestowed upon the best-reviewed movie of the year, with the animated movie defeating several other popular choices from 2010.

Rotten Tomatoes just recently unveiled its “12th Annual Golden Tomato Awards,” although many movie goers may not have heard of these awards until now. According to ABC7.com, the movie “Toy Story 3″ received positive reviews from 99 percent of the critics. It edged out another popular film from 2010, “The Social Network,” which had 97 percent positive reviews. Both movies are up for Golden Globe Awards and likely will be up for Oscar Awards as well.

“Toy Story 3″ was considered the final film in the popular Disney-Pixar series which told the story of a young boy and his toys which came to life behind-the-scenes. Popular characters which emerged from the series included Buzz Lightyear and Woody, with celebrities Tim Allen and Tom Hanks lending their voices to the animated action figures. The final film in the series featured the owner of the toys, Andy, finally heading off to college, and his toys being accidentally sent to a daycare where they soon learned of an evil fate. The toys try to plot an escape from the daycare center so they can re-unite with Andy once again.

In addition to “Toy Story 3,” other movies which won Golden Tomato awards included “True Grit” in the action genre, “Inception” in the sci-fi genre, and “The Kids Are All Right” in the comedy genre. One of the more interesting winners was “The Runaways” starring Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart in the musical category. It achieved 68 percent positive reviews on the year. See the Rotten Tomatoes award winners here.

“Toy Story 3,” “The Social Network,” and “Inception” also rank highly on many year-end “Best Movies of 2010″ lists, so these choices aren’t too surprising to see at Rotten Tomatoes. All three films did rather well at the box office and are currently enjoying more success on DVD and Blu-Ray. The question now becomes if any of these three movies will win the ultimate award, Best Picture at the Oscars?

For Gifted Originals, children visiting our toy shop in Manchester is the essential part of the business. Their enjoyment from marvelling and playing with toys is something we value the most, and therefore take every measure to ensure the shop is a fun and safe place to be.

It seems not all toy shops take the necessary precautions.

A child in Ireland has been awarded €10,000 in damages after suffering post-traumatic stress when a bicyle fell 14 feet to land on the floor in front of her in a County Dublin toy shop.

Katie Campbell, now aged six, was two years old when the incident happened in October 2007 at the Smyths Toys at the Airside Retail Park, Swords, reports the website Breakingews.ie.

The toddler, visiting the store with her father John Campbell of County Meath, a social worker, narrowly avoided being injured in the incident, but barrister David Staunton told the Civil Circuit Court that afterwards she became anxious and also had nightmares.

He added that Katie’s GP had referred the youngster to a consultant child psychologist, Mr Andrew Conway, who diagnosed her with mild post-traumatic stress syndrome, based on symptoms including a hypersentive reaction to noises including thunder and the backfiring of cars, as well as the fact that she appeared unwilling to interact with other children.

As a result, he concluded that Katie’s emotional, social and behavioral development had suffered due to the incident.

Judge Matthew Deery, presiding over the court, approved an offer of €10,000 in settlement from Smyths Toys Ltd.

Last year saw the release of the wildly popular Toy Story 3. Whilst the final film in the Toy Story saga was the highest grossing film of 2010, so is a hard act to follow, this year will see the release of another family favourite.

The Smurfs in 3D will be a much flashier version of the original 1958 series. It tells the story of when the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world and into ours — in fact, smack dab in the middle of Central Park. Just three apples high and stuck in the Big Apple, the Smurfs must find a way to get back to their village before Gargamel tracks them down.

Called Les Schtroumpfs in French, Wikipedia describes The Smurfs as storylines that tend to be simple tales of bold adventure. The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike — mostly male, very short (as tall as 3 crab apples high), with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and sometimes some additional accessory that identifies a personality. (For example, Handy Smurf wearsoveralls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear.) Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet.

They love to eat sarsaparilla (a species of Smilax) leaves, whose berries the smurfs naturally call smurfberries (the smurfberries appear only in the cartoon; in the original comics, the Smurfs only eat the leaves from the Smilax). Smurfs are almost never seen without their traditional white hat on, but the few exceptions suggest that smurfs have no hair, with the exception of Smurfette and later Sassette, who are technically not smurfs.

The Smurfs fulfill simple archetypes of everyday people: Lazy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, and so on. All smurfs, with the exception of Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa, are said to be 100 years old. There were originally 99 smurfs, but this number increased as new Smurf characters appeared, such as Sassette and Nanny. Smurfette is not one of the original smurfs because she was created by Gargamel, the evil wizard.

Gifted Originals can remember like it was yesterday when The Smurfs were highly prized toys for children, being must-have figurines for children (and adults!). The Smurfs in 3D is set to be released on the 3rd August 2011 – we’ll keep you posted.

In a time when trendy, throwaway toys ruled supreme, Gifted Originals always knew that traditional, wooden toys were the proper way to children’s, and adults’ for that matter, hearts.

This is why it’s positive to hear that an independent toy shop in Bacup is boasting a 60 per cent rise in profits, saying that the throwaway toy culture is being replaced by a desire for more traditional wooden toys.

Liz Tucker and Phil Riley run Toys to Treasure in Bacup, which offers a whole host of traditional timeless toys including wooden dolls houses, metal tea sets, marbles and wooden train sets.

This year the shop based in Rochdale Road, Bacup, has seen a dramatic increase in profits on its first year of trading.

Liz said: “There will always be a need for a throwaway toys but we have noticed a real desire for quality gifts this year, that can remain in a family for years.

“Some of our best sellers have been the timeless classics including dolls houses, castles, train sets, but we also have had a wooden cake stand that has been flying off the shelves.

“This is our second Christmas at the shop and we have seen a phenomenal difference.

“We do take credit cards but we have seen a very high number of people joining our savings club which is nice to see in this economic climate.”

The shop specialises in toys for the under-six market.

Liz said: “We have had great feedback from our customers. They like the fact they can come in to our shop and see their children play with our toys before they buy reassures them of our quality.

“We display everything because we want people to come in and have a look.

“No parent ever needs to feel embarrassed of coming into our shop as we have something to suit every price range.”

Other big sellers this Christmas have included magic sets, joke toys and educational gifts including books.

Liz added: “We have sold a lot of educational books and games this Christmas which has surprised me in this very digital era. Parents are obviously wanting to educate their children while they are having fun.”

While Gifted Originals has the best toys, both traditional and modern, for children, a convention in the US has been showcasing the hottest toys for adults in 2011.

Ultra-thin laptops and 3D camcorders will be among the year’s top gadgets, say experts, as thousands of technology firms launched products at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Fraser Macdonald, editor-in-chief of Stuff magazine, which highlighted the must-have items, said: “This year’s show is packed with hot new products, so picking the best was tough.”

The list of the “most exciting and desirable” consumer technology included Samsung’s ZX310 super-thin laptop, which uses a fast new Intel processor; Casio’s Exilim Tryx, a high-definition camcorder with a swivelling and folding design; and Sony’s HDR-TD10 Handycam, a 3D camcorder.

It also featured a mobile phone so powerful it could replace your desktop computer.

The Atrix 4G from Motorola can be transformed into a fully fledged computer by being plugged into a special dock, with users able to use a normal monitor and keyboard to control it.

Pricing for the gadget, set to go on sale in the UK this year on the Orange network, has not yet been announced.

It can also plug into a television and play high-definition films. Motorola claims it is fast enough to run regular desktop computer software, with experts calling it the next logical step for mobile phones.

Stuart Miles of technology website Pocket Lint said: “It’s where computing is heading. It can work as a camera, phone, computer and television — it’s pretty much every gadget you need
in one.”

Whilst reading the world’s press articles, Gifted Originals stumbled upon a blog from a writer for the Huffington Post which, we believe anyway, applies to anyone who has tried to buy for a newborn.

Dear Diana,

I know Teddy is a boy, but I’m sending this pink block because it’s my favorite baby toy, and the only one I had left of a stash I’d bought. I really hope he likes it, and that I can visit soon and shake it at him. I can’t seem to find them from the place I used to get them, and they’ve been a big hit with the babies I know, and hope it’s okay that I’m sending it. Yes, I feel a little silly sending this, but didn’t want you to think I didn’t know his gender.

I sent this letter to a friend who just had a baby — her second, actually, though her first is off to college. I felt like I needed to include a note, lest she think I was color- or gender-blind. I felt a little silly, but also like I couldn’t just send the pink Rich Frog Soft Block, which is indeed my favorite baby toy, and say, “Enjoy!” without arousing at the very least suspicion, at most some attempt at feminist brainwashing. I’d bought them in bulk — that’s how much I like them — but all I had left was pink and I couldn’t find them at the same low price I’d previously purchased them for, so I figured I’d give it a shot. It’s a tricky topic, all the more so because I thought nothing of giving my friend’s baby girl a giant blue Eric Carle stuffed elephant. I would give a baby girl a blue shirt, no problem, but this tripped me up.

In her upcoming book “Cinderella Ate My Daughter,” Peggy Orenstein does an excellent job of unpacking the ways girls are marketed to at a very young age, and the nuances of that gender-based marketing. I think it’s interesting that even for me, who’s been a feminist since my teens, that the socialization around gender starts so early. At one month, I highly doubt my friend’s son will even notice this toy, so it wasn’t about him per se, as the reaction of those around him. Would a pink toy be laughed at?

I shouldn’t have been surprised that I was in this quandary, because gender is so encoded in our society that it’s one of the first things we ask prospective parents. Of course I wasn’t so much worried about what the baby himself would think of the toy, if he even processed its existence at all, but what his parents would. According to an article at Dads Today, “Dr. Linda Lindsay, professor of sociology at Maryville University, believes it is nurture that triumphs nature. When children are very young, she says, they are given stuffed animals. As they get older, girls continue to receive stuffed toys, but boys begin to be teased or chided, especially if he plays with the toy in front of others.” Marcus Leshock writes about taking his baby daughter out and being deluged by strangers who want to either determine her gender or assume she’s a he. Does it matter? To him, yes.

As they get older, it gets more complicated, as mom Christie Haskell writes in “Toys Aren’t Sexist Unless You Think They Are,” explaining how she feared posing photos of her daughter’s traditionally girlie toys for fear of being called sexist. But what struck me was that for all my feminist beliefs (my mom dressed me in a baby Ms. shirt), I struggled with whether or not to send the toy. I wasn’t trying to make any kind of political statement, but simply to hear the words that make me so happy: “___ loves the toy you gave him/her!”

I don’t have kids (yet), though I hope to someday, and I also hope I’ll be open-minded when it comes to the toys they receive. For now, I’m waiting to hear the fate of the pink block.

Gifted Originals completely agrees that regardless of the child’s gender, all toys should be of importance to them.

Pope Benedict XVI has marked the Catholic event Epiphany by visiting a hospital in Rome and taking toys and other gifts to the children there.

The children, many in wheelchairs, gave Benedict little statues of the three kings and some drawings they’d made. He marveled at the artwork, kissed the children and blessed the babies who were brought to him.

Benedict brought the gifts to mark Epiphany, when Catholics believe the three kings brought gifts to the newborn Jesus. Benedict told the children and their families that he wanted to be like the kings and give the children gifts to show his love and affection.

The visit took place Wednesday at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, which has a pediatric center for spina bifida, the spinal birth defect.

Gifted Originals is pleased to see that toys are being used to bring cheer and joy to children.

Traditional and classic toys are usually based on the most simplest of ideas and design, somehow tapping into the child mentality and being treasured for years to come.

Museum of Oxford has taken traditional toys to whole new level, though. Museum staff have been teaching children about simpler pleasures in life than that the latest Playstation can promise with special Tudor toy making classes. Volunteer Masaili Heatley has been teaching children how to make their own Tudor-style peg dolls, using paper cut-offs and pieces of ribbon.

Ms Heatley told the Oxford Mail: “We’ve had lots of children visit the Museum of Oxford to take part in the activities. Children can find out what toys Tudor children played with and make their own Tudor peg doll or soldier to take home.”

Sessions run between 10am and 4pm on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays until February 26.

With history and toys in the mix, Gifted Originals defies any child not to be truly inspired by the Tudor toys at the Museum of Oxford.

Of the many things Gifted Originals is committed to (classic, traditional, well-made, among others), accessible toy packaging is up there. We all know how frustrating it is when we get a new toy but because it’s wrapped in a ton of packaging we can’t get to the actual item.

This is why Gifted Originals, and we’re sure many children and parents, are thrilled to hear Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, will unveil plans next month that will require makers of toys and other household products to slash packaging.

The Telegraph reports: They will be asked to sign a voluntary agreement committing them to long-term cuts in packaging, extending a scheme that is in place for food retailers.

Mrs Spelman told The Daily Telegraph: “At this time of year, it does seem easy to quickly fill up the household bin bags.

“When the Christmas presents have been opened, all the thick packaging, polystyrene and cardboard that’s been put on the toys to make them extra attractive soon piles up. We’ve all got to do our bit to make sure we recycle as much as possible, but there’s another side of the coin.”

Mrs Spelman said retailers and manufacturers had to “make sure that they aren’t ‘over-packing’, and using far more materials than are really, sensibly, needed.

“There’s a big difference between what’s required to make sure that goods don’t get damaged, and what’s actually more about marketing.”

An announcement will be made in February when the Government announces the results of its waste review.

For many years now, Gifted Originals has been committed to supplying toys that are packed in the least packaging possible, saying “boo” to those blister packs and “harrah” to reusable wood containers and recyclable cardboard boxes.

Gifted Originals loves Melissa and Doug toys, especially the toy maker’s new range of plush toys. Stocking 11 of the most popular dog breeds, as well as giant teddy bears and a giraffe that’s four feet tall, Melissa and Doug’s stuffed animals represent the animal kingdom from different regions of the world, from a Westie to a White Tiger!

The elegant White Tiger features lifelike details from the tip of its striped tail to the pads on its front paws. Attention to detail and excellent quality construction will provide exotic delight in any environment.

With its snowy white fur and pointy, upturned ears, the perky little Westie is a perfect companion. It is just the right size to nestle in your lap or tuck under your arm for snuggling. Excellent quality construction and bright, friendly eyes ensure that this pup will be a longtime companion.

But if the little one is more into Golden Labrador, then this is the most faithful and lovable yellow lab ever! Known for its gentle behavior, this fetching tail-wagger features authentic details and excellent quality construction.

For something extra special, who can resist the georgeous plush Giraffe? Standing a proud 1.4m tall this cuddly giraffe is a real statement piece and is sure to give any playroom or bedroom the wow factor!

To view the entire range, take a look at Gifted Originals!