Saturday, January 28, 2012

The Original Green Toys Review and Giveaway (Open To The U.S. Only)





I think that it is important to be green and to teach your children how to be green. I already told you how my mother recycled and reused things, which is how I learned to be green. So if you train your children when they are young, to be careful with their toys and to recycle and use recycled products you are helping to make their world a better place and ensuring a safer environment for future generations.



I was truly privileged to receive a Pizza Parlor and School Bus from Green Toys. I love these toys and their construction. During regular play these toys are durable. They are dishwasher safe which means every so often you can stick them in the dishwasher to clean them up which to me is a really cool feature.
We played with the Pizza Parlor for hours, taking orders, filling them then serving and munching down play pizza after pizza. We got creative and used a tea set and one of my old serving trays to complete the restaurant motif. I got tired of the game before anyone else did and if I had not packed up the set the kids would have happily played with it for the rest of the night.

The Pizza Parlor (rated at 2 years and up) comes with 27 pieces which includes: a paper order pad, a cardboard take out box, a pizza pie cutter, a 4 part pizza crust, and 20 toppings: 4 sauce parts, 4 cheese parts, 4 pepperoni parts, 2 mushroom parts, 2 bell (sweet)peppers (1 red and 1 green), 2 tomato (1 red and 1 green) and 2 onions. The pizza goes together like a puzzle each piece stacking on top of the other toppings. It is really neat and can be changed over and over always creating something new. My kids love to play with play foods so this was a great addition for us.

The only things I would change with the Pizza set would be 1)to include a pie pan, because what decent Pizza Parlor serves their pizza on a cardboard take out box? Plus, they do give you a pizza cutter so a pan would fit right in. 2) Make the order pad reusable maybe laminate it so the pages can be wiped clean and reused (think green) or even a small dry erase board again so it could be reused. How many people are going to have that pad replaced after they run out, the pad runs out quickly because kids scribble all over them. I took the one out of our set and gave the kids a small notebook because when they are long done with this toy I am going to put it away and I want to keep the set complete. The other thing is the cardboard take out box, that is not going to last long either so I put it up during play time, It is neat but kids are hard on that type of accessory because it is so destructible.

The bus (rated at 1 yr and up) is super cool it is a little over 10 inches long and 6 inches tall. The body has rounded edges and the plastic is not the typical shiny finish it is more of a matte finish which gives it a super cool modern, chic quality. It is sturdy and durable built to last and will not break apart quickly like some toys can. My husband even got into the play with the bus because he is just an over grown kid and loves all things mobile. He has earmarked the Bus to go into his private collection when it is ready for retirement. The only negative comments from the kids was that they wished the doors opened, but then decided that if they did they would probably break off  and the only other thing was that there was no room for people in the bus and they would have liked to stuff it full of their Polly Pockets and G.I. Joes. Still it was a huge hit and they are still playing with it.

Green Toys makes all their toys with 100% recycled plastic milk containers. Even the packaging is recycled and the ink is made from soy. Their products meet all international toy safety standards and contain no BPA (bisfenol A), PVC or phthalates.

Because these toys are made from 100% recycled products they save on energy, they reduce greenhouse gas and that reduces carbon foot printing. In fact on average for every pound of recycled plastic they use to make the toys enough energy is saved to run a lap top computer for a month and enough power to run a T.V. For 3 weeks. Now that's being green!

Learn More about Plastics and why it is wonderful Green Toys do not have these compounds in them:
PVC


Green Toys has generously offered to give my readers the chance to win one of each of these toys.





(These gifts  are up to a 38.00 value each!)
To enter all you need to do is give me your name and email address, the rest are optional so you don't have to do them if you don't want to. The more you do the better your chances of winning.


Warning! I do check and verify each and every entry. If you say you did something and you did not your entry will be void. It would be a shame for you to win and not be able to claim such a lovely gift. Also, please check the junk box in the email that you use to enter my giveaways it is easy to miss a notification when it accidentally is sent to the junk file.You can also add bloggityblog@hotmail.com to your safe list to ensure notification delivery.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
Disclaimer:Green Toys provided me with free samples of these products to review,  I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.All opinions are my own.