Children’s Bedding Direct has a unique collection of children’s blankets, bedding and accessories for those spirited children, but we would like to remind you that you can take your decorating to new levels with Hawaiian fabrics, which are used quite often as curtains, homemade bed covers and even quilts.

Crafters frequently use tropical print fabrics to re-decorate lamps, toy chests and a myriad of common items found in children’s bedrooms. Imagine your child’s delight to have a bedroom decorated in a “pirates of the Caribbean” motif enhanced with say some pineapple slipcases or a jungle flower lampshade.

The ideas and possibilities for decorating a child’s bedroom are almost endless, and with a little fabric and creativity you can create an over the top child’s bedroom

Toy Shop UK  is one of a number of niche, industry-specific websites produced by Toast Publishing Limited, that is designed to promote small, independent toy retailers to the wider public. 

With categorised sections based on specialism and location, the directory offers a handy way to find specialist toy shops, regardless of what kind of product you are looking for. 

Check them out at www.toyshopuk.co.uk

If you are looking for anything toy related for your children you might also want to have a browse as only reputable shops are accepted into their directory. There’s plenty of categories so it could help give you inspiration to buy the perfect present for your children too!

Me and Geoff my husband were sat in the living room when our child Joey trotted in with a curious look on his face and asked where babies come from.

Geoff quickly lifted the newspaper up in the hope he would become anonymous and I was left in no doubt this was clearly a mothers duty! So I set about explaining to Joey in simple terms how a baby was made, probably one of the most awkward sentences I have ever uttered…

“when Mummy and Daddy make love a baby begins to grow in Mummy’s tummy and it grows and after 9 months pops out as a little baby as you did.”

I thought that was a fairly simplistic answer but little Joey seemed to read more into it and replied….

“That’s great Mummy that means I’m going to have a brother!” Joey then started Dancing around the living room shouting “I’m going to have a brother, yippee I’m going to have a brother!”

Geoff briefly popped his head up above the newspaper and looked at me over his reading glasses with a what have you said now look.

To my embarrassment I thought kids must progress very quickly these days and presumed Joey knew what making love meant and he had overheard a moment me and his dad had had the previous night. After re-gaining my composure I said

“Joey what me and Dad do occasionally is very normal and it is the process of life but it doesn’t always mean you are going to have a brother.”

Quite elegantly put I thought but to my utter astonishment and great laughter Joey replied……

“I don’t know what you’re on about Mummy but my new brother is going to be here very soon looking at Daddy’s belly!”

Geoff slamming the paper down and storming off upstairs was well worth the moment of embarrassment I had mistakenly felt earlier!

Some of the latest children’s bedding can also be accessorized with a number of other bedroom pieces including area rugs, wall light covers, desk lamps, ceiling lamps, wallpaper, borders, garbage cans and more. You can do up the entire room and you don’t have to be a designing expert either.

Some of the popular choices for children’s bedding include designs featuring princesses, flowers, butterflies, dinosaurs, cartoon characters and super heroes. Little girls really love Miss Kitty, Dora, anything Disney especially princess themes. Now little boys really seem to be into sports, construction and animal themes.

One of the great advantages about children’s bedding is that you can purchase separates or you can choose bedding sets. In most comforter sets you will get the comforter, bed skirt and pillow shams. You will always have to buy sheet sets and pillow cases separately. You can also simply buy a comforter and purchase everything else separately. Often you can find some excellent deals on sets making them a much better buy.

If you have never shopped online for bedding, you have to check it out. The selection is often greater than what you would find when shopping in person. This goes for both adult, children’s and baby bedding. Many online retailers offer excellent prices as well as free shipping to entice shoppers. For fun ideas, spend some time shopping online to narrow down your search. Remember, we spend a great deal of our time in bed so we may as well be sleeping on sheets that we love.

1. In the Cartoon Ben 10 what is Ben’s cousin called?
2. If I was competing in the Piston cup what Disney character am I most likely to be?
3. What is the name of Peppa Pigs little brother?

View the rest of the current Cartoon Character Quiz…

Q4 - Which cartoon is this character from?

While there are all sorts of mattresses out there, finding the right mattress for your children’s bunk bed may be one step harder. Not only do you have to worry about the comfort factor in mattresses but measurement is very important with bunk bed mattresses! Every year, children become injured due to the wrong kind of mattress.

A bunk bed mattress that is too high can be very dangerous. If the mattress is too high, the guard rail really serves no purpose. The guard rail should protect your children from rolling off the side of the bed. The mattress should be roughly 4-5 inches below the top of the guard rail. This way, your children won’t be tumbling over the guard rail anytime soon!

Conversely, a bunk bed mattress that is too low can cause injuries as well. While the guard rail should rise above the mattress 4-5 inches, it should not exceed this! A low mattress can be very hazardous as a child may slip between the mattress and the guard rail, choking the child, falling through the gap, and other various potentially dangers. Bunk bed safety is very important and should be observed at all times.

Overall, make sure you check and double check all measurements with the mattress. A twin size mattress should always be used with a twin size bunk bed and a full size should stay with a full size bunk bed. Never interchange the two!

Once you’ve determined the exact measurements of your bunk bed, you can now begin to think about the comfort level of the bunk bed. Like stated above, a mattress that is too soft or too hard can leave you sleepless at nights. This is where personal preference comes in. You and your children should test all mattresses to feel what works and what does not work with your kids. They should pick what is most comfortable for them. While finding a nice comfortable bunk bed may not be as easy for children, the end result will be much more rewarding as your children will get a better nights sleep!

Find more on kids bunk beds.

# 1: Make your children part of the shopping.

Contrary to what you might feel, children do grow up very quickly to pick up things for themselves. If your child can walk, then it is time enough to take him or her to the furniture store. Or go online shopping, for that matter. Show your child all the options there are, and ask his or her opinion on it; so that if things go wrong later on, you will not be hard pressed to ask for a replacement. When your cutesy-pie says that he or she doesn’t like the furniture in the bedroom, you can always say, ‘But dear, it was you who selected the furniture, wasn’t it?’ And it is only fair that your children make the choices. For, after all, it is they who are going to spend time in that room.

# 2: Select a blend of beauty and durability.

With children’s bedroom furniture, it is not just the beauty that matters. Children’s bedroom furniture looks very beautiful in the store display, but let it live for a week in your children’s bedroom and you will know what I mean. Hence, your primary focus should be on the strength of the furniture. You must literally probe under the covers and check for the strength of the nuts and bolts and the knobs. Remember that your children are going to do all that anyways!

# 3: Do not buy all your children’s bedroom furniture at once.

This is a very valuable tip, do not ignore it. Parents in their zeal of getting everything for their adorable darlings go all out and buy every bit of furniture they can stuff into their children’s bedroom. But, it won’t work that day, I tell you. It would be wiser to get the most important bits of furniture first, and then buy the remaining pieces in small installments. Like, get only a bed and a wardrobe first. When your child gets tired of them, get a study table. When that becomes stale too, get a chaise. That way, you are stretching out the bedroom’s novelty value for a longer time. And it is good on the wallet too.

# 4: Pay attention to basic safety.

It goes without saying that children’s bedroom furniture has to be as safe as it can be, but you will be amazed to see how many of them actually can harm the baby. Many of them have sharp corners, jutting ends, steep edges and such other perils. Check and check again whether the furniture you are selecting has any such thing. Even if you actually have to turn the furniture over to check for its safety, do it.

# 5: Plan for the future.

The cute little toddler beds do look very appealing in the stores and you might be so very tempted to spend the obscene prices on their labels and get them for your kid. But, it does not pay to be so emotional when you are buying children’s bedroom furniture. We all know how time flies, and soon enough your kid’s limbs will be poking out of the toddler bed you purchased no more than three months ago. When that happens, what would you do, except dump the bed and get a bigger one? At another obscene amount? However, if you are a careful planner, you will think for the future. Get a size that will be suitable till your child grows. Let the furniture become a part of the child’s growing up. You can also select customizable furniture that you can keep adding to as your child grows up.

It is difficult to get the right kind of children’s bedroom furniture. Adults will make do with whatever they get, but children are brutal. We all know of kids who will simply refuse to go to bed because they do not like the print of the bed sheet. Try to avoid that possibility. Get the kind of furniture that your child likes, and which is suitable for him or her. You will have a healthier (and a less grumpier) child that way.

By Neil Valentine D’Silva

If there are children in your household, then a birthday is sure to mean lots of toys. If you’re like most families, you have spent the weeks prior to the big day dashing about town, running from one store to the next, looking for the perfect toys. Do you know what kids toys to buy? How much should you spend on them? And what about the toys that your children already have?

Shopping for kids toys should be done with care. Take the time to look through sale ads, clip coupons, check out stores each week, and even shop online to find the best deals on the must-haves for each year. We have a rule in our household, and the rule is that we do a miniature

“spring cleaning” in the weeks leading up to one child’s birthday. The common areas and bathrooms are easy enough; it’s the kids’ bedrooms that give us trouble. 

With so many kids toys strewn about, it’s hard to know where to start. But the easiest thing to do is grab two trash bags. One bag will hold broken and old toys that are ready to be discarded, and the other bag will collect those kids toys that can be donated to charities and shelters. Removing ready-for-trash toys is easy enough, but how do you know what to donate? Well, what comes to mind is an easy rule for household organization: if it hasn’t been used in six months, then chances are it won’t be used, and so it is ready to hit the road. In the case of children and kids toys, that time should be reduced to three months. So there you have it: if a toy hasn’t been played with for three months, give or take a few days, then it’s ready to go.

Once you have cleared out all of the old and are ready for the new, you may be looking at ways to improve storage and organization. I can’t recommend enough a good set of storage bins. They are perfect for organizing kids toys of a variety of shapes, sizes and purposes. These bins are often designed so that they may be stacked on top of one another, and some even come with a plastic or wooden “display shelf” that angles the bins upwards and outwards, which makes accessing the bins to reach for the toys within a simple task.

Gogos Crazy Bones Bedding

Although only launched in the UK in 2008 Gogos crazy bones have been hugely popular in other countries through the 90’s and into the 2000’s. The colourful designs of Gogos crazy bones will make for great designs of other Gogos crazy bones merchandise such as the bedding which is due for release soon.

The Gogos crazy bones figurines make up a kids game that is based on an ancient greek game called astragals. Although there’s over 80 UK Gogo crazy bones there are also five very rare figurines which are called Fist multicolor, Hiraku, Ichiro red, B-Boy and Angiru which is the rarest Crazy Bone. Collecting these rare crazy bones is every kids dream!

The wait is not too long now for Crazy Bones fans as Gogos Crazy bones bedding will be here this summer!

Unspoken words,
reveal more than you can hear.
So read their minds,
to give them the best of everything!

It is possible to provide your child with facilities, style, comfort and safety. A few steps that will help you do up your home interiors without the help of interior designers have been enumerated below. Before beginning the work on your kids bedroom it is important to decide what effect you would like in the room. The factors that will help you make the right decision are your child’s age, gender, location of the room and space available. Information whether the room will be shared by your child alone or siblings also matter!

• A Dash of Color
  I am sure that all of us have always associated pink with girls and blue with boys, because of this, kids bedrooms have always been either of the colors. Well! Times have changed and now the addition of bright colors like yellow, red and green have entered the children’s bedroom. When selecting the color, ensure that they are water-based because that would make cleaning easier. I hear you say…can I use wallpaper? Yes, it is possible to combine the two in the same room to create some magic of your own! There is another option too, which includes using faux finish plaster or using tiles cladding in square and rectangular shapes.
• Bring In The Lights
  Like I said earlier, lights fascinate me because even simple light pieces can transmute a simple room into one that provides ample right for your child to read and play. Use lights to add glamor, style and drama. Floor lamps are beautiful and can be placed near the play area. Add lights with dimmers so that you can dim the lights when your child falls asleep when you are reading to him/her. Lights come in all shapes, colors, materials and sizes, so you are sure to find one that compliments your child’s room.
• Cover The Floor
  Safety should be the first thing to consider when selecting the flooring for your child’s bedroom, keeping this in mind select flooring that is not slippery, devoid of friction and made of fine materials that are allergy-proof. Two ideal options are wood flooring and carpets. Select these materials after talking to friends who have already done up their kid’s bedroom or visiting websites.
• Pieces of furniture
  The essentials pieces of furniture in a kids bedroom are a bed, cupboard, bookshelf and a study table. Select from the wide range of products available at the local furniture store or websites. While selecting the ideal piece make sure that the material and color used on the pieces are of good quality. Make sure that the pieces of furniture have rounded edges too. If you have a space constraint, select furniture that serves a number of purposes, makes use of corners and has storage.
• Window To Your Child’s Room
  There’s plenty you can do with the window in your kid’s bedroom. You can use artwork to decorate the window to your child’s bedroom. To do this, use stencils that come in various shapes. Not only this, you can also use shadows to bring in a new meaning to the room, begin by obstructing the entry of light by using a mild steel grill or a stained glass painting. This wall can also serve as a focal point because the shadows on the wall will change with the direction and intensity of the sunlight. Drapes can also be used, after ensuring that they are of appropriate height.
• Knick-Knacks
  From my experience as an interior designer I have often realized that there is so much that can be done with accessories. Actually every time you go shopping you are sure to find something new to include in the room (at least that is what I do). After you have decided on the color of the room, furniture, lights, window treatment and furniture, you are now ready to proceed to the next stage. I feel it would be a nice idea to have a large board on the wall on which the child is able to display his/her works of art. Pictures of their favorite characters, flags and maps would also add another facet to the room keeping with the rest of the décor. While buying bed sheets, pillow covers and cushions ensure that the material is fine. You can select form the wide range that includes cartoon figures like Winnie the pooh, Mickey and Donald and Garfield. Apart from this you will also find them in designs like cars and rockets. Buy the other accessories in unbreakable and colorful material.

These are just a few ideas to get you started, I am sure using these ideas and adding some of your own will ensure that your child’s room is fashionable and functional. All the best!