AD – SuperThings Rivals of Kaboom gifted for review
My girls absolutely love blind bags, unboxing and surprise reveal toys. There is something so inherently appealing to them about the anticipation and excitement of discovering what’s hiding inside the bags. They love ticking off collectors’ sheets, searching for rare or ultra rare editions and of course, trading them with their friends.
Previously known as SuperZings, we were recently lucky enough to test out some of the NEW SuperThings – Rescue Force collectables, the latest series of fun collectable toys with sustainable packaging. If you haven’t heard of them yet – read on to learn more and for your chance to win!
What are SuperThings Rivals of Kaboom?
SuperThings are super cute collectible characters made from rubber that measure approximately 1 inch tall.
Every SuperThings Hero has an opposite SuperThings villain and they live in Kaboom City. There are over 80+ characters to collect in each series, so children will love ripping open blind bags to see who they have hidden inside and trying to collect them all.
We were sent a massive bundle of new SuperThings Rescue Force Series 10 collectables to review including a Starter Pack, 10-pack including the gold leader, six pack including a silver captain, a Rescue Jet and Jump Wing, three individual SuperJets, one Kazoom Kid figure and some of the pocket money friendly single blind bags. You can see a full unboxing and the contents of what we had inside over on Insta with our reel below.
REEL
What can you find in SuperThings Rescue Force Series 10?
The Rescue Force collection is out now at The Entertainer, Amazon and local Tescos, ASDAs and Coop
Series 10 of SuperThings Rescue Force has over 80 new superheroes and villains to collect including two rare gold Superleaders figures, rare silver Captains, and for the first time ever, two ULTRA RARE SuperThings; hero Emperorder and villain Moonarchaos. The villains have yellow coloured eyes, whereas the heroes have a slightly less sinister white.
In Series 10, there are also 6 NEW Kazoom Kids (larger-sized characters) and 12 NEW Rescue Jets (move along vehciles) to collect.
SuperThings Rivals of Kaboom Starter Pack
If you’re buying SuperThings Rescue Force for the very first tmie, the SuperThings Starter Pack is a great place to start. The girls loved ripping open the bag to reveal the magazine and 24 page comic guide – featuring loads of information about the SuperThings heros and villains. In the starter pack you also get 2 SuperThing chracters (one of them with chrome effect) and 1 metallic Rescue Jet (the design of which is exclusive to the Starter Pack!)
SuperThings 10 pack
If your kids become SuperThings packs and want to grow their collection quickly, the 10 pack of SuperThings contains ten different SuperThings, one of which is guaranteed to be a gold-coloured figure. Each 10 pack is numbered (there is a choice of two) so you can get both gold characters whilst avoiding too many duplicates.
RescueForce Jets
These mini vehicles have two pieces that slot together with wings that ‘pop out’ when pressed. The larger Kazoom kids can clip on to stand on the rescue jets, whilst the smaller SuperThings can be pressed on using the hole to the rear.
Kazoom Kids
Whilst the girls loved the cute size of the SuperThings, we also loved the larger play characters – Kazoom Kids, the gurdians for the SuperThings. There are 6 to collect and each one comes with an accessory and compatable SuperThing. They clip on to the RescueJets, so can easily be pushed around and played with too. We got Star Lock the police officer.
What we loved about SuperThings Rivals of Kaboom
Unlike some collectable toys where the novelty is all about the unboxing, Neve has genuinely enjoyed playing with the SuperThings long after the packaging has been packed away, acting out little scenes and clipping on and off the vehicles.
As a parent, I love the more sustainable packaging – unlike single-use plastic which is obviously a huge concern and puts me off purchasing, the SuperThings range is made with cardboard and paper bags and boxes which are recyclable and as such a bit more guilt-free! The bags were also far easier for Neve to open without assistance too.
With single blind bags costing just 80p, they’re affordable and pocket money friendly, as well as making a great option for party bag fillers and pass the parcels too.
The girls are huge fans of plush and surprise toys, so a toy that combines a combination of a mystery reveal and a soft and cosy friend to cuddle was always likely to be a huge hit!
We were recently sent some products from the brand NEW Cutetitos Partyitos range, a range of adorable surprise reveal toys that I just knew the girls would love. With new themes regularly being added to the Cutetitos range, there are always lots of fun new characters to reveal and collect.
What are Cutetitos Partyitos?
If you aren’t familiar with Cutetitos already then seriously, where have you been?
These adorable collectable toys come in a surprise mystery bag which children absolutely love ripping open to reveal a super cute 7.5-inch plush toy, nestled inside and tightly wrapped in a soft, cosy blanket.
Each Cutetitos range has a different theme, with some of the blankets looking like burritos and pizzas and in this particular Partyitos range, like a birthday cake – decorated in sprinkles, chocolate or sweet toppings pattern.
Simply unfasten the velcro seal on the blanket and roll it open to reveal one of 8 super cute characters tucked up inside! The blanket is completely reusable, allowing children to wrap the characters back up as they wish or use to tuck them into bed at night (true story!)
What did the girls love about Cutetitos Partyitos?
Having had a few of the Cutetitos products in the past (Pizzatitos and Unicorntitos), the girls were over the moon to be given the opportunity to open up some of the new Cutetitos Partyitos range.
As with other Cutetitos ranges, the anticipation of opening them up is super exciting, with the girls looking at the packaging in excitement to see the kind of characters they may discover inside.
After ripping over the mystery bag (which is easy enough for younger children to do without assistance) you could smell the beautiful scents almost immediately – the girls thought they smelled amazing – a fresh, fruity scent, without being too strong or overpowering.
The first step to revealing the character involves unwrapping a party themed piece of wrapping paper that is holding the blanket in place.
This step was a little bit like unwrapping a birthday present or indulging in a game of pass the parcel where you are guaranteed to win a prize. Let’s be honest here, I am yet to meet a child who wouldn’t enjoy that!
Once the paper has been ripped away, it reveals the birthday-themed blanket design underneath, with the surprise character safely snuggled up inside. Neve couldn’t resist having a quick peep at the character’s face to see which of the eight different characters she had got!
To reveal the whole character, you simply peel away the velcro holding the blanket in place and roll it open to reveal the full design of the brightly coloured birthday cake blankets (We had one covered in star-shaped sprinkles and the other in what looked like smarties). Inside you find the super cute character and a collectors card which helps children get to know their character.
There are 8 different characters to collect and we received Mewito the Catito and Tutito the Chihuahito. Mewito came with a lovely party hat with a tassel on the top, whilst Tutito is wearing a pretty rainbow tutu which can be removed and refastened as desired.
As with most surprise collectable toys, some of the Cutetitos Partyitos characters are more common than others – ranging from Sweet to Super Sweet, and the girls were pleased to find one of the slightly rarer characters inside theirs.
The girls also loved reading facts about their new friend on the included collector card, including their character’s name, birthday and ‘hot spot’ rating.
Whilst some surprise toys are all about the opening, these toys are just as much fun once the packaging has all been discarded. Super soft to the touch, the plush toys are great to cuddle and slightly weighted. They also include a unique little balloon symbol/cutie mark embroidered on their side in the shape of a balloon.
Overall verdict
Overall, as expected, the Cutetitos Partyitos, apart from being incredibly difficult to pronounce and spell, went down really well with the girls, who are now understandably keen to try and collect the rest of the set! At £10 each, I actually think these are relatively good value for money, especially when compared to other surprise reveal toys, it definitely feels like you get more to show for your money once all the packaging has been put away.
The full range of Cutetitos toys including the new Partyitos range are available at The Entertainer now.
Ad – Micro Toys Collectible were gifted for review
Like most children their age, my girls get real enjoyment from collecting things, opening up surprise reveal / blind bag toys and ticking things off collector sheets! As such, when we first heard about Micro Toy Box – collectible micro toys and miniature versions of some of the favourite toys from my own childhood and beyond, I knew they would be a big hit with Erin & Neve!
We headed to our local Smyths Superstore to check them out ‘in the wild’ and Neve picked her favourite box from the selection on the shelves. Here’s what you need to know!
What are Micro Toy Box Collectibles?
Having recently hit our stores as a brand new micro toys for Autumn / Winter 2021, Micro Toy Box collectibles are micro miniature replicas of the toys I remember fondly growing up. These tiny little versions of classic toys are perfect for dolls houses, creative play and role play between siblings – my girls absolutely love creating their own play worlds and these mini toys made a great addition to their doll’s playroom!
Series 1 of the Micro Toys Collectibles comes with over 50 different toys to collect and are available in packs of 5, 10, 15 and 20 making them ideal as both pocket money purchases and bigger gifts. Because the parts are quite small, they are recommended for children aged 8 and above. Neve is only 5, but was fully supervised during play.
Unlike some blind bag / surprise toys, The Micro Toys packs come with some of the items visible in the packaging, meaning that you can always see a few of the toys that come in the pack whilst the remainder are hidden in blind bags. This is a great way of helping children find the ones they are missing and avoid getting too many duplicates.
As with most collectable toys, some micro toys are rarer than others, meaning that children are most likely going to be seeking those ones to complete their collection!
Opening up our Micro Toys Collection
Neve absolutely love surprise reveals and blind bags, so I knew that opening the hidden micro toy box collectibles was going to be right up her street!
The bags were a bit tricky to open as they are quite stretchy and I will be honest, given that the toys themselves are already made from small pieces of plastic, it was a bit disappointing to see more single use plastic in the packaging.
I would’ve felt more comfortable if these had been paper based bags, which are not only easier to rip open, but better for the environment too. Lots of toys are shifting to paper at the moment, so this felt like a bit of a step backwards in terms of wasteful packaging.
Inside, we found some small collector card stickers and a big fold out collector sheet for ticking off the toys we found. It was great to see the full list of toys to collect, the majority of which I recognised and remembered from my youth!
Neve really enjoyed checking off the items we had found, including some toys that came in two different colours. Some toys are more common than others, so Neve was really chuffed that we managed to find a few rare items in our first few bags including Crocodile Dentist – I used to absolutely LOVE this!
All the Retro Emotions of Micro Toys
As a parent, it was lovely to see some retro versions of some of my favourite toys from my own childhood – items such as the original My Little Pony and the Glowworm which were much less familiar to the girls but made up a big part of my own childhood toy collection. I had fun telling the girls all about the Glowworm that I used to take to bed with my every single night, a nice warm glow emanating from its bottom! 🙂
The girls loved comparing the micro toys to their original items – some of which we had in the house including Monopoly, Uno, Barbies and My Little Pony toys.
You can really see the scale differences in these pics! 🙂
Overall, The Micro Toy Collectibles are really cute – I would say they are best suited to slightly older children as per the recommended age 8+, not only because of their size, but due to the fact that they could otherwise easily get lost of discarded in the house. If your child has a dolls house and can use them to actually play with after opening, this would add to the longevity of the toy and stop them from just being about the big reveal!
Micro Toy Box collectibles are available now in Smyths Toys – go check them out!
Cats vs. Pickles is a fab new range of collectible toys, inspired by the viral social media trend, which saw cat owners placing a cucumber (or pickle) near to their cats and filming their (HILARIOUS!) dramatic reactions. The wonderfully wacky world of Cats vs. Pickles invites you to enter a world in which cats are nothing short of paw-trified of Pickles!
The super cute plush handheld toys come in over 100 different designs – which team will you fall into? Team Cat? or. Team Pickle?
Cats vs. Pickles already has a pretty ginormous fanbase, thanks to their silly fun videos that can be viewed over on the Cats vs. Pickles YouTube channel. If your kids haven’t started asking for these yet they soon will, so pick a team, Team Cat or Team Pickle, and learn more about this exciting new toy collection. We headed down to our local Smyths Toys to see which ones they had in store!
Cats vs. Pickles Collectable Plushies
Available from Smyths Toys and The Entertainer (RRP £4.99)
The girls very quickly found the Cats vs. Pickles display cabinet in Smyths and started trying to make their choice! There are more than 100 different styles to find and some of the designs are just stunning! Super squishy and made from super-soft plush material, each character has their very own unique design that reflects its paw-sonality!
What themes are there?
There are Foodie Cats like Paw-Purr-Oni; Sweet Cats like Mint Chippie; and even Smarty Cats like Mew-sical Meow! Some of the girls favourites are shown below – they found it so so hard to choose!
Each Collectable Cats vs. Pickles Plushie comes with a special hang tag that contains the character’s name and bio, with a QR code for a free app game download!
Cats vs. Pickles Themed Multipacks
As well as buying the Cats vs. Pickles plushies individually, they are also available as multipacks with lots of fun themes – each multipack comes with a guaranteed, blind packaged Pickle character and have exclusive cats inside! We love the one that looks a bit like Mr Bump below!
Where can I buy Cats vs Pickles?
Cats vs Pickles toys are available at Smyths Toys and The Entertainer
As collectible crazes go, this is one that the girls are really going to enjoy. With pocket money prices and no plastic in sight (wood!) these are sure to be a hit for the whole family!
Head to your local Smyths Toys or Entertainer now to get your Cats vs Pickles toys now
*We were gifted a selection of Cats vs. Pickles toys in exchange for our honest review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own*
#AD – Samples sent for review – contains affiliate links*
Erin has always been a huge fans of surprise reveal toys, and now 2 and a half, Neve is following closely in her footsteps. Both are big fans of BABY born dolls and creative play, so we were very excited to learn about the NEW BABY born Surprise toy from Zapf Creation that has hit the shelves this Easter after a successful launch in the US.
Aimed at children aged 3 and above BABY born Surprise is set to be the new craze and combines collecting, unboxing and surprise toys in one. BABY born Surprise comprises of cute baby characters dressed in swaddles, with over 10 surprises to discover with each one. Just like unwrapping a present, children will love unboxing and unwrapping their baby to reveal their adorable features hiding below!
We were lucky enough to get our hands on some BABY born Surprises prior to the release so the girls could put them through their paces. Here’s our verdict!
The BABY born Surprise is much smaller than a traditional doll but larger than other surprise reveal toys on the market, about the size of a large mango when removed from the plastic casing (they may require an adult’s assistance with this bit).
The first ‘reveal’ is to unfold the outer layer of the package by untying the ribbon bow and opening out the wrapping to reveal the baby lying inside. The first layer is a large BABY born sheet which can helpfully be reused as a blanket for other larger dolls or simply to wrap the characters back up again should the girls wish.
There are 12 different BABY born Surprise characters to collect, and each baby character is bundled up in an adorable snuggly swaddle which is made from super soft fleece materials. The designs vary from an ice cream cone to a unicorn, and there are a couple of mermaids designs thrown into the mix too! If your children are anything like mine, the unicorn and mermaid varieties are going to be extremely popular and definitely make the wish list!
When you open up the outer wrapping, you will reveal a small blind bag and your character lying fast asleep in their swaddle, in our case, we revealed a peas in the pod type design which was very cute. The swaddle is easily opened and closed with a velcro fastening, meaning even younger children can pop the baby in and out of her swaddle easily without assistance. The BABY born Surprise baby initially has it’s eyes closed and in order to revel the eye colour you need to use water in order to ‘wake’ the baby.
The eye colour reveal is a one time only activity, and we found that using a baby wipe worked quite well or alternatively you can dip some tissue in water. There is a make up like layer over the baby’s eyes (almost like a paint / foundation type substance), which was easy even for small hands to remove. As you wipe the outer layer away, your babies eyes, and their eye colour are revealed below (looks like we missed a teeny bit on our baby below!).
Once you have revealed the eye colour, unwrap the swaddle to reveal their unique hair style. Again each BABY born Surprise has a variety of different hair styles ranging from a small tuft to a full head of adorable curly hair!
The next surprise is to find out the gender of your baby. Open up your surprise blind bag to reveal either a pink or blue bottle inside. We were lucky enough to get one of each!
Each BABY born Surprise doll has their very own colour change nappy, each with a unique design which appears when their nappy is wet. In order to reveal the design, you must first feed them water to make them pee. This involves sucking water into the bottle, popping the bottle in to the baby’s mouth and squeezing to empty the contents. I have to admit there was a bit of an art to this, and one of our babies pee’d pretty quickly whilst the other needed a bit of shaking and encouragement for the water to come out. If your child is impatient like mine, another option is to simply pop the baby into water, as the reveal happens much faster that way! 🙂
Each character has a birth certificate which comes with fun surprise games to play as they reveal each surprise, and helps children to learn more about their characters name, birthday, star sign and favourite food.
Overall the girls have really loved the BABY born Surprise dolls – Neve in fact so much that she has insisted on taking her baby upstairs to bed with her and have her lie down next to her bed in her little swaddle, and loves carrying them both around with her! The BABY born Surprise dolls are a great alternative to Easter eggs, and at pocket money prices are a great way of treating your child to a doll without having to invest a huge amount! That said, with 12 different characters to collect in series 1 and a collectors sheet, I can imagine the girls will want to try and collect them all.
BABY born Surprise dolls are available from Amazon, The Entertainer, Smyths Toy Stores, Argos and all good toy stores and retail at £11.99 each.
Pros of the BABY born Surprise dolls
Lots of stages to unwrapping and interacting with the baby
12 different babies to collect
Small sized doll / pocket money prices as opposed to larger more expensive dolls.
Fun interactive elements to ‘reveal’ and learn more about the baby – prolongs the play time and makes them a little bit different to other surprise toys on the market.
Cons of the BABY born Surprise dolls
From a parent’s perspective, the wee’ing part in order to change the colour of the nappy was a bit of a faff, and for us we found it easier to simply wet the nappy to reveal the pattern.
You can’t tell which one of the 12 characters from the outer packaging (as you would expect from a surprise reveal toy!) but as a result you may find you get a few duplicates which could be frustrating. That said, children may be able to swap with friends prior to doing the eye colour and opening the blind bag, as they will see in the very early stages of the reveal if they already have that particular doll.
Baby born Surprise Giveaway Bundle!
Fancy winning a bundle of 3 Baby born Surprise dolls for your children to unbox themselves? Which characters will they get?? Enter using the giveaway link below.
Hi, I’m Lucy, a thirty something mum of two from Birmingham. A memory maker, tradition keeper, stationery addict and Mr Men fanatic. HR Advisor by day and sleep deprived Mama by night!
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