This week Lisa and I are going shopping! It is the New York International Gift Fair at the Javitz Center. Besides Toy Fair (mecca for toy retailers), NYIGF is the best way to learn about amazing new toys to add to GIFT HERO. We spent today walking through the general gift and accent on design sections. Tomorrow we will scour the Baby and Child floor where there’s sure to be too many great gifts to choose from.

We stocked up on educational toys and award winning toys including the coolest jewelry kits, arts and crafts sets, building toys, gifts for girls and gifts for boys. Visit us soon for great new kid’s gifts and old favorites from Alex Toys, Fashion Angels, Perplexus, Ogosport and many more.

At Citibabes, the primary goal of our classes is to promote the cognitive, social, physical, and emotional growth and well-being of young children. We also like to have fun in the process. We understand that each child is unique and learns in different ways and as such we design our classes around experiential learning. We encourage children to engage in meaningful learning through play, real-world experience, and child-centered activities that are both educational and fun. Here are a few top “edutainment” picks from GIFT HERO – toys that are the perfect combination of education and entertainment (aka “edutainment”) for your little ones, specially chosen by a few teachers at Citibabes.

- Tracey Frost Rensky, CEO and Co-founder, Citibabes

Flower Stacker by Wonderworld: This construction toy is perfect for those little hands that are developing fine motor skills and the stacking motion it encourages will enhance spatial relation and balance concepts. It’s aesthetically pleasing design and all natural construction makes it both an adult and child-friendly option. (Karla Morey, Creative and Training Director) 

Dado Planks: Already being a fan of dado blocks, these planks are the perfect addition to the classroom.  Endless hours of exploration, construction and learning. (Aaron Goldschmidt, Head Teacher, CitiSchool, 2’s and 3’s)

For a complete list of Citibabes’ Teacher Picks, visit GIFT HERO and CitiScoop: Citibabes’ Online Magazine.

To learn more about Citibabes, visit our website or stop by the Club at 52 Mercer Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10013

Oh goodie, another birthday party. What is that, the twelfth one this month? Instead of making the usual pilgrimage to Toys R Us, Target, or Walmart with your hair on fire at the last minute, consider a much more sane alternative: creating a birthday closet.  Your budget will remain unscathed, and you’ll have something on hand the next time your kid is off to a party.  And the time after that, and the time after that.

If you’re not familiar with the term “birthday closet” and you’re worried you don’t have an entire closet to spare for birthday gifts, fret not.  It’s just shorthand for a stash of birthday gifts that you buy once or twice a year rather than one at a time.  If you live in a small apartment, you could store them in a bin or box under the bed, or like I do, on the top shelf of my linen closet. 

 I like to stock up on age-appropriate gifts every fall, once I get the class list (my boys are still young enough that they get invited to every classmate’s birthday party).  That means I stock up on 15 or so gifts at once – and I can’t help but smile to myself thinking of all of the last-minute sprints to the local store I am saving myself.

If you’re thinking of setting up your own birthday closet, here are five secrets to making it work.

• 2 Is Not Enough.  In order to really get ahead of the insanity, you need to stock up on at least 3 toys.  The idea is to eliminate the run around before parties – and the only way to do that is by having enough toys on hand.
• Establish Clear Reorder Rules.  When you get down to two remaining gifts, it’s time to reorder.  You never want to be in the position of having two birthday parties back-to-back, but only one gift at the ready.
• Look for Free Shipping.  When you’re buying in bulk, shipping costs can add up.  I always make it a point to shop where I can get free shipping. 
• Bag vs. Giftwrap.  While it may seem like a good idea to get your gifts pre-wrapped, I always recommend opting for gift bags.  That way you can peek inside of the bag before you go just to be sure what you’ve got is appropriate for the birthday boy or girl.
• Stock up on Greeting Cards.  You’ll always want a card to go along with your gift.  In addition to an emergency stash of gifts, you should also have an emergency stash of greeting cards on hand, like these (http://getbuttonedup.com/our-products/all-products/greetings-stash/)  from Buttoned Up.

Posted by: Sarah Welch, one of the Gurus at Buttoned Up (getbuttonedup.com) an incredible site with tips and advice on how to keep it all going in the right direction in spite of cram-packed schedules and to-do lists that are a mile long.

To stock up on gifts for upcoming parties, visit our birthday closet category at GIFT HERO.

I”m sure this has happened to everyone. Your family is invited to friends for lunch and playing…and you ask, “what can I bring?” Inevitably, the gracious host says “yourselves.” Yesterday, we were invited for lunch and swim and my friend’s answer to my question was “swimsuits!”

I have a hard time going empty handed so thankfully, I had a few kids’ gifts stocked away in my closet. Our friends have a 6 year old girl so I pulled out a Buddha Board. 

After swimming and running around in the hot sun, Benjamin and their daughter played with the Buddha Board. It kept them busy for quite awhile – painting their designs and watching them disappear. They even had a little science lesson as they discussed how the water was evaporating and their pictures were changing.  Needless to say…good clean fun was had by all!

Kids all over the country are going back to school – and getting birthday party invitations! No doubt - if you have child in preschool or elementary school, you will be receiving  some party invites very soon.  Take advantage of our special back to school offer of free shipping on any order – use promotional code BTS10.

Here are some great unisex gifts for boys and girls that you can have on hand now so you don’t get caught unprepared.

Little Picasso Art Kit makes a great birthday gift for kids ages 3 to 6.  It’s an adorable tri-fold design, and comes markers, colored pencils, scissors, glitter glue and a pencil sharpener. There’s even room or kids to add a few of their own favorite tools.

For kids two and under, try the Animal Alphabet Blocks.  These 2″ x 2″ blocks are made from durable cardboard and will keep kids busy buiding and knocking down for hours.

For kids 7 and older, you can’t go wrong with a science kit. Try Minerals, Crystals and Fossils by the Young Scientists Club. This kit includes three separate kits in one and will keep kids engaged for many days.

Recently a customer asked us for advice on buying a gift for two year old twin boys.  She was looking (ideally) for one gift that they could “share”.

Well the first problem there was the word “share”. Two year olds are generally not very good at sharing.  However, our advice to her was to buy something like a block set that has a ton of pieces (and multiple pieces of the same shape and size). For two year olds, we don’t recommend wood blocks yet because too often they are thrown or used to hit someone. We recommend these wood-like soft blocks from Edushape, which are perfect for this age and even older. The soft foam blocks look like wood and will stand the test of time. We also carry other soft blocks from Edushape:  the Brick-like Edublocks, Educolor blocks and Mini Edublocks (shaped like large lego pieces).

We’ve often said that toys make wonderful gifts when visiting family and friends. So…this year, consider bringing a kids’ gift if you are invited to a Passover Seder or Easter dinner.

At GIFT HERO, we’ve got lots of great options. I love the idea of bring a gift that is holiday “themed.”  Hoppers Jr. from Thinkfun is perfect for Passover. Frogs are the first plague and the most memorable one for children. This delightful single-player game is wonderful for boys and girls ages 5 and up.  There are 40 challenges all with the end goal of helping Red Frog Freddy win the leaping contest by being the last one on the pond.

Chickyboom from Blue Orange Games is terrific for Easter.  This new to the market, multi award winning game is for boys and girls ages 4 and up.  It’s a fun game of balance to get the chickens, wagon wheels and hay bales off the rocking roost before it’s too late.

Happy 2010 from GIFT HERO!  Thanks to our customers, our holidays were joyful (and very busy). We are excited about the year ahead and are busy finding all of the best new birthday gifts to add to our store.

To make room for new inventory, we are having our first annual January sale!  Through January 25th, we are offering 30% off a selection of our toys, games and puzzles. Some of the too-good-to-miss gifts on sale are the 333-piece Building Set from Clics, the C9-R Sports Car from Automoblox, Air Force One Playset from Daron, Sleeping Beauty Ballet Theater from Candlewick Press, and the Bling by Number Tote Bag from Fashion Angels. To see all of our sale products, visit our sale category.

Shop now for the best selection and stock up on gifts for January birthday parties. Remember, if you spend $75 or more, you’ll get free shipping.

As a special holiday gift to our customers, we are offering free gift bags with each gift purchased from today through December 17th.  We normally charge $3 per bag – which we think is a steal for gift wrap (with our nifty drawstring bag, you don’t need to wrap or find a bag to carry the gift, plus the bag is reusable as a tote or a storage bag for toys).

To receive your bags, you must add one to your shopping cart for each gift you order.  Just click on the blue “Add a Gift Bag” button in the shopping cart to add bags to your order. 
Happy holidays and enjoy!

Like you, I’ve got a ton of gifts to get for the holidays (not to mention a few birthdays thrown in too).  Thought I would share some of my personal picks for this season.

For 2 year old Simon, I have selected the Chubbies Bucket (pictured left). This bucket is filled with 15 different kinds of vehicles, and it is good for indoor or outdoor play – even the pool or tub since they float!

My 6 year old nephew Adian is quite artistic, and so I have selected for him a couple of products that will enable him to express himself creatively.  The Make Your Own Cards for Boys is right up his alley. It comes with shapes that boys will love to use to create their own designs with trucks, robots, sports stuff and more. He will love to make his own thank you notes for the holiday gifts he gets.  Another thing Adian will love is the Young Artist Learn to Paint Set, which contains paper, paints, brushes and instructions on how to mix colors, etc… Adian lives in Toronto so I will be shipping his gifts directly to him!

For my 8 year old niece Lauryn, I have selected the Butterfly Diary and Mobile.  She will love to decorate her own diary and pen and write in it. The butterfly mobile is so fun to design and it will look  great in her room! We will be seeing Lauryn over the holidays in Florida but I am going to ship them to her mom anyway so we don’t have to pack them in our luggage. I’ll ask her to hold onto them until we see her

I am so glad that we make it so easy to order and send gifts at GIFT HERO. I can order all of the stuff I mentioned here in one order and have them ship to three different addresses. I can also include gift bags and gift messages for each one. Talk about better gifting!