This past Saturday was one of those days when my family didn’t leave our apartment. The snow turned to sleet and we cozied up in the family room reading, watching movies and playing games. Lisa had recommended Sketch It! from Blue Orange Games to us. Her kids (and the adults too) love this educational game. We just added this kid’s gift to GIFT HERO because her family was addicted.

Sketch It! is an unique drawing game that inspires creativity, quick thinking, and fine motor skills. With this award winning toy, both the sketcher and the decipherer can earn points. We all had a blast trying to draw at the right speed – too fast and you confuse the others…too slow and you miss your chance to score. Find Sketch It! and lots of other great educational toys for 8, 9 and 10 year olds on our site. It’s a perfect birthday gift.

My almost 7 year old son Benjamin loves to draw.  He is a lefty, so he had a hard time learning to hold a pencil but once he got comfortable (nothing like a few months of OT with a “graphologist” to jumpstart things) it really became something he enjoyed. At the recommendation of the Art Specialist at his school, we always carry around a sketchpad and some crayons or colored pencils and it keeps him busy in restaurants, in the car and during quiet time at home.

At Gift Fair this past summer, Lisa and I discovered  the fabulous      Playful Art Set from P’kolino. This kids’ gift  includes markers, crayons and colored pencils.  The ergonomic shapes and jumbo sizes make them perfect for young hands. What I love most is that the crayons don’t come wrapped in paper (Benjamin always peels off the paper from new crayons) and the pencils are 100% color – there’s no wood!

We are setting up Benjamin’s work area at home – for doing homework, art projects, etc. I am clearing out all the old broken crayons, worn out markers and stubby colored pencils and replacing them with this awesome art set. I can’t wait to see the masterpieces he creates…

When Lisa and I conceived of GIFT HERO, our goal was to make it easy for moms to buy gifts for all of the parties to which their kids were invited. We have each struggled to find “perfect” kids’ gifts and we felt that no local store met our need for simplicity, convenience, a good and edited selection, and fair prices. So…we started GIFT HERO as the ideal online solution.

Fast forward 18 months and GIFT HERO is a success!  We quickly established a following and we’ve gotten great feedback on our selection, how easy it is to shop on our site, how quickly we ship, and our adorable gift bag. But, some local NY moms have said that they can’t  plan ahead even a couple of days (if you order by noon on Weds, you will get your gifts on Friday…pretty fast, huh?) and they wished they could shop GIFT HERO on their way to a party.

I have known Tracey Frost, the Founder and CEO of Citibabes for a few years, through work we both do for a charity called Baby Buggy. Tracey and I got to talking and realized that we should work together to further meet the needs of city moms. Citibabes is a fabulous club for young families located on Mercer Street in Soho. The club has a retail store that sells a carefully edited selection (sound similar?) of gorgeous clothing and gear for babies through 6 year olds. Her members and customers were asking them to sell toys…

We are thrilled to announce the opening of GIFT HERO at Citibabes. Located at the club at 52 Mercer Street on the 3rd floor, the store is open to the public and sells amazing gifts and toys for babies through 6 year olds. The teachers at Citibabes are even helping us customize the selection of educational toys to meet the interests and stages of development of city kids and their discriminating moms…a very tough audience!

GIFT HERO at Citibabes is open Monday to Friday, 8AM-7PM, Saturday 9AM-6PM and Sunday 9AM to 6PM. 212.334.5440

We love Pairs in Pears and Appletters, two brand new word games from the makers of Bananagrams! And good news, they are appropriate for slightly younger kids – ages 6 and up. The folks at Bananagrams have developed these games with the Kindergarten-2nd grade set in mind. They make great birthday gifts because they are so visually appealling and the games are entirely educational yet fun.

We also sell Bananagrams for the slightly older set - 8 and up – although you can never really outgrow Bananagrams!

Just in time for the holidays, we added three brand new products from Zoob to GIFT HERO.  We love Zoob building sets because they are so versatile. Kids can create anything from vehicles to animals to buildings and so much more. The sets are really durable, and the pieces big enough to not get lost as easily as some of the other big name  building sets.

Pictured here is  Sparkle Zoob – the same Zoob building pieces in bright, sparkly colors. The folks at Zoob told us this product was created specifically to interest girls, who are more attracted to these pieces than to the traditional Zoob colors. I love that more companies are starting to realize that girls love to build as much as boys. My daughter Maya has her eye on this set for sure!

Also new from Zoob is the Zoob Cube – which contains sturdy floor tiles and Zoob pieces so that kids can create new kinds of Zoob creations like forts and buildings. The Zoob pieces fit right into the panels – which also interlock together to hold the Zoob pieces for storage – very clever design by the folks at Zoob.

Finally, we love the Zoob Jr. line, made especially for ages 3-5.  The Zoob Jr. pieces are bigger in size for little hands.  We have added the brand new Zoob Jr. Zoomers, which includes Zoob pieces, wheels and instruction cards with easy to follow diagrams that do not require reading. Boys will love making their own moving vehicles and then zooming them all over the place. A great addition to the line from Zoob!

Just in time for the holidays, and in response to your requests, we have added some higher priced gifts over $40 for your family shopping needs (grandparents, aunts, uncles -this means you!)  Of course, we have also added to our amazing selection of under $40 gifts as well. So no matter what your budget, GIFT HERO has a great gift selection.

Here is a sampling of some of our favorite new additions in the higher price category.

The Fold N Go Dollhouse is an amazing first dollhouse for a 3 or 4 year old girl. My daughter Maya received this when she turned three and it has been one of her favorite treasures. The best part is that it  can be locked shut and is light enough to bring to grandma’s house for the holidays!

For 3 and 4 year old boys, one of our favorites is the Design & Drill Workshop. This is an amazing toy that boys (and girls) will play with for hours – using the “drill” to insert and remove colorful screws to create their own unique designs.

For 6 and 7 year olds, we have some amazing building sets from Superstructs – while they are also appropriate for younger ages, we think that these really big kits are better for this age set. For boys, try the Big Builder 126 piece Set for making big moving vehicles. For girls Superstructs made the awesome Pinklets Fairy Garden 110 piece set.

For older boys and girls, we have added some amazing science kits from boutique manufacturer Thames & Kosmos. Kids ages 8 and older will go crazy for Wind Power or Physics Solar Workshop, which teach kids real science through hands on experiments. We have tested all of the science kits, and Thames & Kosmos are simply the best for the older set.

Just use our Gift Finder to locate the perfect gift – enter age, gender and price category. It’s that easy!

We are always looking for new products that make great birthday gifts.  So we are always adding something new into our product mix at GIFT HERO. To make it easier to find the latest additions, we have created a NEW products category that you can link to right from our home page.  Also, when you use our gift finder tool or the shop button, you will see new products identified with the NEW button.

We love to hear from our customers! Many of the new products we add come from recommendations from our friends and customers. So when you come across something really special, please email us at info@gifthero.com or post a comment here on the blog or on our facebook page.

One of our brand new products is the Solar Car book by Klutz. My son Josh’s friend told him about this amazing kit, which enables kids to make their very own solar-powered car. Kids will enjoy becoming experts on solar energy!  This makes a great birthday gift for and 8-10 year old boy.

My son Josh is a sports fanatic. Every morning he reads the sports section of the NYT and follows all of the teams’ stats – especially for football.  Even though we live in NYC, much to the chagrin of Josh’s grandfather (who is an avid NY Giants fan) Josh’s favorite team is the New England Patriots.  We have a close family friend who is a Patriots fan, and he got Josh excited about American football at an impressionable age – 5 or so. My husband is British and is much more concerned with his own kind of football (soccer), so Josh is also a big fan of European soccer clubs – Tottenham Hotspurs are his fave if you care to know.

So of course GIFT HERO carries lots of toys for the sports-obsessed child like Josh. We just added in Football Guys from Kaskey Kids. It’s a realistic football playset with two teams, refs, a large paying field, goalposts, and more! We also carry Baseball Guys, Soccer Guys and Soccer Girls.

My sister and her family just moved to Toronto this summer. My nephew is six years old and in first grade and my sister is pregnant with #2 – due in November. This summer, as she was busy ordering furniture and other things for their home she complained about how few stores in the U.S. ship to Canada and the difficulty she was having finding some of her most familiar brands. Since Canada is so close to the U.S., I guess that I had assumed that wouldn’t be the case.

So I promised my sister that I would do my best to get GIFT HERO to ship to Canada – and starting today we are! Now my sister can get awesome birthday presents for my nephew’s friends, and great holiday presents for my nephew.

Since GIFT HERO launched in March, we have had many inquiries from Canadian customers and bloggers – thank  you to all of you and we are pleased to say that we can now ship to you. Please visit our customer service page for details on shipping rates and policies. We would also love to hear from you about some of your favorite gifts that you would like for us to carry.

Canada here we come!

Girls today are much more fashion aware than we were as kids.  As a young girl whose mother bought clothes for us at JC Penney, I really had no idea about “fashion” until I was much older. My daughter Maya, not even six, definitely has an eye for the trends – she will tell me when she thinks something isn’t fashionable, and also proudly announces, “I have good taste.” And she does – my husband has her coordinate his ties with his suits for important business meetings

Hot off the runway, GIFT HERO just got in a few new products for the fashion-minded girl 8 years and up.  My personal favorite is Bling by Number Tote Bag, pictured left. Girls can either follow the instructions or use their own creativity to make their own unique design. Ready for the Runway?  For the aspiring designer, check out the Fashion Design Studio Set and the Graphic T-Shirt Designer.