A great dressing up set, which really appealed to Maxi (my non dressing up boy) and Mini who is always someone and somewhere else. Mini especially liked it as he is very in to Merlin and Knights. It is very easy to pop on ad n off and has taken much abuse and is not the worse for it.

The thing about face paints is they’re designed to highlight your short-comings as a parent. They always come with these great booklets showing how to create a lion, or a skeleton, or a 19th Century French clown’s face… if you’re a professional make-up artist. I am not a professional make-up artist. So I passed these Snazaroo Girls’ Face Paints on to my eight-year-old niece, Annie, and invited her to try them out with her friends.

This is retailing at up to £40 and personally I think that’s a lot of money for a toy that I don’t think has a great deal of play value. My bet is that in most homes it will be played with for a week then forgotten about until Dad needs a fancy dress outfit. The box seemed to promise so much more than it actually delivers, so we were disappointed. I think if you’ve got a child who is really mad about Transformers then it might go down well – just be aware that this isn’t a “voice transformer’.

when I first spotted the Aspace wooden sword, I was instantly reminded of the wooden swords my grandfather used to make for us when we were children. And how much fun they were. A lightsaber is all well and good, but sometimes only a wooden sword will do – and this one looks gorgeous.

So much more fun than the plastic alternatives. This shield is pleasingly solid, and charmingly traditional.
Buy online at Aspace
Price £10
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Initial Thoughts: This wooden shield is a traditional chequer design in blue paint …

What’s not to love? It’s deliciously retro, very shiny indeed and would be the perfect finishing touch to any cowboy outfit. Handily, it attaches with a clip rather than a pin (a bit like those visitors’ badges at conferences or if you visit big office buildings) so you won’t get poked fingertips!