February's Toy Fair is a Valentine to the Love of Play

Toy Fair 2012 takes place February 12-15, 2012 at the Javits Convention Center, as well as in showrooms at 1115 Broadway (at West 25th Street) and other locations throughout New York City. The 2012 event is expected to attract more than 1,100 exhibitors from around the world with over 250 of them exhibiting for the first time. Attendees will include retailers, wholesalers, importers, buying groups and trade guests from nearly 100 countries.

Here are a few of the must-sees recommended by The Giggle Guide^®: K-Dron, Little Adventures, Fascinations and BeginAgain.

K-Dron Shows How to See the World Differently

K-Dron is an eleven-sided spatial form with unique optical, acoustical and structural properties that was discovered by Janusz Kapusta in 1985. The name comes from “K,” the eleventh letter of the English alphabet; and the Greek word “hedron,” which means surface.

The new K-Dron game is at once very simple and incredibly complex, making it a great toy for kids as young as six, as well as a fun challenge for anyone older. This family game includes four white and four black plastic shapes that can be combined and recombined into over 380,000 shapes, with various levels of difficulty in the games that include Race!, Challenge!, Precision! and K-Chess, all designed to fascinate and intrigue.

Also making its debut is the K-Dron Universe, a bridge between a map and a globe that enables users to see the sky and globe at the same time. A visual aid for astronomy and geography, it combines a flat and 3-D look at the sky above and the earth below. A simple fold brings the earth to the sky and back again.

These two new entries join the K-Dron family of games and toys that include the K-Inside Out Globe that totally changes how we look at the world and the K-Gravity Building Blocks that enable tools of imagination and creativity to come together.

See the world as it has never been seen before at www.k-dron.com

Little Adventures Bring Out the Princess in Every Little Miss

“Mom designed with kids in mind” is the motto of Little Adventures, a company offering award-winning dress-up costumes with matching designs for adults, dolls, or plush animal friends. For this year’s Toy Fair comes a spate of dramatic dresses to ignite little girls’ imaginations. The deluxe Sleeping Beauty Dress has a bright pink velvet silver-trimmed bodice. The glittering collar and beautiful white rose complement the delicate drapes over a bright pink skirt.

For a young lady ready to imagine going to a fancy ball, stock the Deluxe Cinderella Dress with a china silk skirt overlaid with sparkly organza. Both sleeves and hip drapes are a soft, shimmering silver fabric, totally ready for the stroke of midnight. A stretchy bodice helps accommodate most body sizes.

The Magical Mermaid Dress is a two-piece costume featuring a shimmery pink bodice with china silk ruffles at the shoulders and waist. The iridescent green stretch skirt is easy to walk in and trimmed with green sequins; the light green china silk ruffle completes the mermaid fin.

For the fairies waiting in the wings, Little Adventures offers the Hot Pink Tulip Fairy, a dress with two layers of shimmery pink/hot pink organza with a delicate scalloped edge on top of a china silk under-skirt. The bodice is made of stretchy pink crushed velvet, and the skirt is highlighted with six iridescent fabric petals and three pink roses.

The Deluxe Rapunzel Dress (hair not included), is comprised of a sparkly crushed velvet bodice with gold trim. The unique princess sleeve is absolutely elegant and sets off the billowy organza overskirt.

The Lily Pad Princess Dress, a beautiful addition to a girl’s princess dress collection, has a luxurious white and green bodice of stretch crushed velvet and green silk. The skirt is white silk with two layers of sheer knit green fabric for the full princess look.

Make sales magic with fantastic costumes at www.littleadventures.com

Fascinations Has the Formula for Making Science Amazing Fun

For wonders created by physicists, check out the amazing offerings from Fascinations. At Toy Fair, the company will introduce the Levitron High Flyer, a hand-controlled gadget that lifts objects into mid-air and enables them to sit there, suspended three feet high! The High Flyer comes with a small ball that can be floated on the Levitron where it spins. This terrific toy holds kids and adults spellbound.

AntWorks is another new item based on work by NASA where scientists wanted to learn more about zero gravity. In a typical ant farm, ants live in sand but can’t survive in zero gravity, so NASA created a special gel environment that also serves as the ants’ source of nutrition. Ants can be ordered or kids can dig up ants outdoors, install them and watch them tunnel in 3-D. AntWorks has LED lights on the base that make the special gel glow.

Also look out for Metal Marvels, a group of designs including the Space Shuttle, Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building, all stamped onto flat shiny metal. Following the instructions, kids six and up pop out the pieces and put them together. The creations are laser engraved so the finished item is a stunning stand-out.

Fascinations offers several other unique items including Desk-Quariums which provide faux pets without the hassle. Fish swim, a frog enjoys a lily pad and magic jellyfish undulate for viewing pleasure. A line of banks not only swallows coins, it makes them spin around inside and comes with a booklet about the science of spinning coins. Kids eight and older will get hooked on the AstroBlaster, watching the top blast off to over five times the height dropped. This scientific wonder works like a real super nova and was created by Astrophysicist Dr. Stirling Colgate.

Fascinate your customers: www.fascinations.com

BeginAgain Combines Classic Games with New-Age Wonder

Making its debut at this year’s Toy Fair, BeginAgain is a creative mix of old-time storytelling and responsibly crafted invention. These toys don’t have batteries or electronic gizmos nor do they leave a mess behind as oil is out and plant-based materials are in whenever possible. BeginAgain toys are made of natural rubber and cotton fabrics, sustainably harvested woods, wheat starch plastic and bamboo.

Artist On The Go is a complete art kit with a carry case, pencil holders and a 6” x 9” recycled paper notepad, 10 soy crayons, five drawing stencils, including a 6” ruler (metric and inches), and two wood pencils. The kit is perfect for keeping children occupied while waiting in restaurants, airports, and on road trips.

The three and up set will enjoy the Treasure Hunt - Objects and Shapes Game with five game ideas, including “The Sneaky Seeker,” “Blindfold Grab,” matching games, and more. Or, flip the soft natural cotton game board over and play a classic game of Checkers. The 18” square game board includes a Velcro^® pocket for storage and is also a map for role play with a 65-piece game set, complete with treasure map game board, 20 game cards, 20 matching game pieces, and 24 natural rubber treasure coins.

Kickin’ Putt is the original, old-time toss and kick game that combines the fun of soccer, kickball, flying discs and golf, providing great year ‘round entertainment. Toss the scoring disc to set the hole, and player one starts by kicking towards the goal. The scoring disc is made in the U.S.A. from wheat plastic and the kick golf balls are natural rubber.

Bathtub Ball/Shark Tank is ideal for the bathtub or warm weather pool play. The Shark Tank set features a natural rubber shark tank, hero diver with old-time diving helmet, rubber octopus, and two shark characters. The Bathtub Ball doubles as a carry case. The whole thing can go into the top rack of the dishwasher.

Get back to the future at www.beginagaintoys.com