Skipping Hippos and Story Time Felts Giveaway

I hate to remind everyone but we're getting close to August. If you want me to spell it out that means that Back-to-School season is nearly here and Skipping Hippos is a children's clothing store that has beautiful items for cooler weather.

If you have already caught on to the poncho craze sweeping the nation then you may have seen Skipping Hippos' beautiful little collection of bright perky ponchos that are just as cute as a poncho can be.

They also have little girls' jackets such as you see to the right, the Day in May jacket comes in almond and sky blue and the Daisy Dogwood comes in stretch denim with various pattern choices for the lining.

Really cute stuff--between the pompoms and the cheerful colors I'm wondering if it's possible to squash any more cuteness into one package.

I also wanted to share another site with you--Story Time Felts sells felt board story sets on about every theme you can imagine.

You think I'm exaggerating but no, their catalog has felt board cut outs for fairy tale stories, scripture stories, holiday stories, or teaching math, geography and science (plus much more). I looked through their products and couldn't help but get excited about all the possible uses that the felt figures presented and I can only imagine how helpful they'd be for home schooling parents, teachers and anyone else who works with children. They even have one for teaching music!

I was sent a wonderful set of one of their most popular items the Castle Tales Felt Board Story Set and Lillian and I got the fun job of giving it a test run. It comes with the characters for Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, the Princess and the Pea, the Frog Prince, Rumpelstiltskin and St. George and the Dragon along with a covered backdrop and an audio CD that tells the stories.

My kids had never heard of the story of St. George and the Dragon before and this one became their favorite story as they would work together to put up the figures when each character made his entrance. The only thing I'd suggest to the company is that the audio CD tells the stories in record time (no pun intended) and you have to be pretty darn fast with the hands to keep up with the narrator though I don't recall there being a rule book that says you must use the audio CD.

Anyway, it's a terrific and a beautiful creative toy that Lillian's enjoyed and it feels strong enough to easily stand the wear and tear of our house. I'd highly recommend these and if the price tag seems a little steep I love it that they also offer the figures uncut for a lower price so you can save some good money by cutting the felt yourself. If you'd like a sample of the felt you can request a catalog and it will come with one.

So what am I giving away this week? Thanks to Story Time Felts I have a set of Fairy Tale Felts for one winner and I have one of Skipping Hippos' darling jackets--with a big thanks to Skipping Hippos' generosity--for another random entrant. You have until Monday morning so good luck!

Here's how to win:

Before 12 am Monday go to the giveaway entry form on this page and enter your name and email. I will pick one of the names at random, contact the winner via their email and publish the winner's first name and home town in next Tuesday's post. See the bottom of the entry form for more details.

This giveaway is open to all readers so good luck!

Sponsored by Dimples and Dandelions--for the Serena and Lily Bedding Collection for Children

If you liked this post you can subscribe to receive updates through RSS feeds or email.

Technorati tags: product reviews, giveaways, children, toys