Create your own Winter Wonderland!

The pre-Christmas build-up can be a magical time for adults alike. And now you can make it even more special for you and your children with the assistance of the experts at Maps Toys.

Their stunning Christmas Village will allow children and parents to create a genuinely enchanting festive scene which is certain to become a much-loved centrepiece of your family's Christmas decorations for many years to come.

The Christmas Village craft set comprises everything that you will require to build, decorate and illuminate a snowy-covered Victorian Yuletide winter wonderland extravaganza.  Children from age five and upwards will delight in creating the village using the six card building templates. They can create  quaint thatched cottages, an ancient church, an inn and the all-important village Post Office. They'll love making stained glass and leaded windows out of opaque paper, colouring pens and coloured tissue paper.
Of course, taking centre stage in the village Christmas festivities is the traditional Christmas tree, which features a special fibre-optic LED glowing light on top of the tree that will magically twinkle throughout all of Christmas.

LED lights are cleverly integrated into the scene so that each building will radiate a festive glow, so evocative of a real Christmassy atmosphere. 

You can scatter the special reusable snowflakes over the village base to create a snow covered street scene that is just waiting for the villagers to walk through as they go to the village Post Office to post their last minute Christmas card to a relative in the next village or visit the church for a special carol service.

You can also add a touch of glitter and a dusting of snow to the village rooftops and you can sit back and admire your handiwork.

The Christmas village will be a lovely and compelling way to mark the start of the festive celebrations and you and your children will delight in showing off your creation to friends, family and visitors this Christmas season and for many more to come. It will be the start of a new and very special family Christmas tradition.

The Christmas Village costs £24.99 and is available at www.the-owl-barn.com. Visit www.mapstoys.com for details of other stockists.

Sand play this Christmas!

If you are looking for a toy that will keep the kids entertained as happy well beyond Christmas, then you should buy them the genuinely unique My Little Sandbox range from Map Toys.

The unique playsets will provide young children with hours of fun, when they can use the power of their own imaginations to create their own fun. And they'll keep them busy when the weather means outside play is not possible.

Each playset is themed around different play scenarios which include Pirates, Mermaids, Holidays and Construction.

The sets are well made and each one comes in its own sturdy hardwood box that is filled with ultra fine play sand which is easy to vacuum. Miniature toys and accessories come with each playset so the children will be sure to have lots of fun in the sand. The construction  set features mini diggers, boulders bricks and building workers ans is perfect for those children who fancy themselves as builders.

The Mermaid Sandbox features a beautiful mermaid figure along with some coral and underwater plants and seashells. And the sunshine theme continues with the Beach Sandbox. Children will adore the holidaymaker, the parasol, the deckchair, the towel and the bucket and spade. Little boys will have endless fun with the Pirate playset which includes a cool pirate ship, a crocodile some palm trees and the vitally important treasure chest! (EDITOR: Some little girls will be keen to get their hands on the Pirate playset, too...)

Each My Little Sandbox playset comes complete with its very own grooming rake and digging shovel so the children (and adults!) can create different scenes. Each playset also comes with a special playmat which is designed to catch any sand. And I am reliably informed that adults can use the playset -when the kids are in bed!- as a fantastic Japanese sand garden stress toy, with the sand rake!

Each My Little Sandbox playset should cost something in the region of £24.99, it is available from Amazon. For details of stockists visit www.mapstoys.com

Do something great this Christmas. Amaze your kids!

Who says knowledge is boring? Or that frivolity and fun should be eschewed for learning? Only those unfortunate people who have never found the joys of Maps Toys!

This year Maps Toys are inviting you to make Christmas one big, fun and exciting experiment for your children and their friends! (If they want to share the fun, that is!)

For this year Map Toys have some fun and funky toys and games that are sure to puzzle and excite both children and adults this Christmas!

There's something for the mucky pup in us all, called Yuck (should cost about £17.99) a gigantic tub that contains a whole host of top secret formulas to create some tremendously icky stuff. Create snot that looks disgustingly real, and something that looks like... vomit? As well as making disgusting treats, your children can learn how to grow their own bacteria farms using a real petri dish! Yuck! This is suitable for children from age 8 and upwards and for adults who do not have ticklish stomachs!

But, to coin a phrase, there's more!

Why not create some awesomely fun towering geysers, with the  Great Geysers present. (You can expect to pay something in the order of £14.99 for this.

The kit gives you all you require to make a gigantic fountain with fizzy pop and some Mentos sweeties! (So if you get your video camera out, you and your kids can put their efforts up on You Tube, just like the professionals!) But there's a serious point behind all this frivolity and fun, children will be able to perform 12 serious and informative scientific experiments with the kit.

There's also some rather more sedate yet equally fun experiments to be undertaken with the Lab in a Bag, which contains enough experiments to last through the entire year. There are four in the range which include Newton's Antics, Come to Your Senses, Test Tube Wonders and Test Tube Adventures. They should cost £14.99 each. They come complete with a handy plastic carry case.

Children can learn some fun tricks like how to balance six nails on the head of one nail with Newton's Antics to discovering why they might hate vegetables with Come to Your Senses!

Many parts of the UK were fortunate enough to have a real White Christmas last year, the first in many years. But it's unlikely we will be lucky enough to have a White Christmas two years on the trot, so if you want to give your children a taste of a White Christmas, why not buy them some Amazing Snow Grow? It's so simply to use! All you do is get your special Insta-Snow powder, sprinkle it on a dish, add just a splash of water and before you can say White Christmas, you will have an eruption of snow! Insta-Snow looks so realistic it can fool people into thinking it is real. Especially as it even feels cold to the touch!

To find out more just visit www.mapstoys.co.uk