Christmas Shopping | Festive Fun | Moss Vale Festive Foraging
Late night shopping and festive fun is coming again this Christmas to Moss Vale, thanks to The Vintage Toy Box and the Moss Vale Independent Retail Association.
Late night shopping and festive fun is coming again this Christmas to Moss Vale, thanks to The Vintage Toy Box and the Moss Vale Independent Retail Association.
On Thursday 12 December between 4 pm and 9pm, Argyle Street and surrounds is going to stay up late as part of Moss Vale Festive Foraging.
Not only will this be a chance to meet Santa and sing along with our local carollers and the Wingecarribee Vocal Musters, but it will be a fantastic opportunity to pick up some exclusive offers from participating outlets.
Best of all, lucky ‘foragers’ who follow the Christmas map and collect the 12 Christmas stamps in any of the participating businesses will go into the draw to win a Festive Forager prize pack on the night, from a total prize pool of $3000.
The prize will be drawn at the Southern Highlands Brewing & Taphouse in Moss Vale at 9pm on Thursday 12th December 2019.
We are delighted to be able to showcase some fantastic local talents, with entertainment throughout the afternoon and evening, and throughout the Foraging Trail from:
Wingecarribee Vocal Muster (Outside Suzie Anderson Home)
Pointe Dynamic Arts (Leighton Gardens)
Moss Vale Anglican Street Carol Singers (Upper Argyle)
Chaszenry (Outside Mossy Store)
Joyce Dingjan (Outside Moss Vale Mall)
White Waratah Face Painting (Leighton Gardens)
and of course … Santa and Mrs Clause who will be putting on an appearance throughout the evening!
As well as many other special treats, there will be a special prize on the night from The Vintage Toy Box for the best dressed Christmas outfit in the theme of ‘The 12 days of Christmas’, so come in your festive finery!
There will be plenty of places to grab a bite to eat, and something for all palates, with the following participating outlets open on the night:
Wine Mosaic Lounge (upstairs and downstairs!)
As well as many more, and treats in Leighton Gardens from:
Shoppers will also get the chance to vote on the Best Dressed Christmas Window on the evening, with the People’s Choice Winner winning this fantastic business prize pack:
2 hours FREE legal advice for the winning business, to a value of $1,100 from Palmer Legal.
1 months FREE advertising on ALL of their electronic advertising boards from BDCU Alliance Bank
$200 advertising boost from University of Woolongong Southern Highlands Campus in Moss Vale
All Moss Vale CBD Business with a window are eligible to enter. The winner will be the business with the most votes at the end of the evening and will be announced at 9pm as part of the Festive Foraging Prize Draw.
Some of our retailers will be offering a special gift wrapping service for a gold coin donation. This year we are getting behind the NSW RFS and will be donating your donations to them for all of the great work that they are doing for all of us. Look out for the gift wrap signs!
Spread the word and get the whole family down for an evening of festive fun and frivolity!
Follow #festiveforagingmossvale on Instagram for updates.
Happy foraging!
Plan your route in advance with our interactive Festive Foraging Map showing the participating businesses on our Festive Forage Trail.
NSW Permit No. LTPS/19/39653
For further information visit: https://www.facebook.com/MossValeIndependentRetailAssociation/
Lollies Through Time
Now that we’ve also recently opened up a lolly shop in-store we thought we’d indulge our sweet tooth and take a look back at lollies through the ages, and learn a little about candy through time.
Now that we’ve also recently opened up a lolly shop in-store we thought we’d indulge our sweet tooth and take a look back at lollies through the ages, and learn a little more about candy through time.
Lollies can be traced all the way back to the ancient civilisations. In Egypt the Egyptians combined honey with various nuts and fruits and across the seas in Ancient Greece, China and Arabia they also used honey to bind fruits and flowers together.
Fun Fact: The word candy came from the Arabic word ‘Qandi’ which means ‘made of sugar’.
One of the oldest documentations of hard candy was Barley Sugar, made from Barley grain. Between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE the Greeks and Persians discovered a reed that grew in India that produced ‘honey without bees’. This marvel later became known as sugar cane. Pieces of sugar were produced by boiling the sugar cane juice. In ancient India this was called Khanda and dubbed the original candy.
Fun Fact: The word sugar derived from the Sanskrit word Sharkara.
Before the Industrial Revolution candy was actually considered as a form of medicine and was used to cool a sore throat or to calm the digestive system. Even earlier, during the Middle Ages candy was a combination of spices and sugar that were used to aid digestive issues and it was even available in tablet form.
Fun Fact: A very popular medicinal candy was called Chamber Spice and was made with ginger, cloves, juniper, berries, pine kernels, almonds and aniseed, all dipped in melted sugar to combine them all together.
In 1847 the invention of the candy press revolutionised the way candy was made, it made it possible to produce various shapes and sizes of candy all at once. Soon after in 1851 lolly makers began to use a revolving steam pan to assist in boiling the sugar which meant that confectioners did not have to stand over boiling sugar and continuously stir it, (and a few candy makers were saved from the boiling pot!).
Fun Fact: The lollipop was invented by a man named George Smith in 1908; he named it after his horse.
In the later 1800s lollies began to grow with more varieties being made. One of the first was Candy Corn followed closely by a butterscotch candy called Reed’s Rolls, Juicy Fruits, Tootsie Rolls and Peanut Brittle. Dum Dums lollipops were invented in 1924 with seven original flavours; lime, orange, lemon, coconut, pineapple, grape, butterscotch and cherry. They were called Dum Dums as the inventor said it was easy for children to say.!
Lollipops have been around long before Dum Dums came into the shops. They were being eaten in the Middle Ages as boiled sugar was eaten off sticks as it was a lot easier to consume. The famous Chuppa Chup lollipops were introduced in 1958 in a clear wrapper. It wasn’t until 10 years later that the iconic wrappers were brightly printed, swimming in colour.
Fun Fact: In 1950 Bobs Candy Canes were introduced to the shops and the brand was known as Cris Cringle.
The 1960s was a huge decade for lollies with Starburst Fruit Chews, sugar free gum, Razzles and Sweethearts hitting the market. The early 1970s saw the introduction of Laffy Taffy with a joke inside every wrapper.
How do you rock a baby alien to sleep? You rocket!
Why couldn’t the shoes go out to play? Because they were all tied up!
What room can no one enter? A mushroom!
These were just a few awesome jokes that were inside the Laffy Taffy wrappers.
Fun Fact: During 1958 the classic, fun, retro lolly was made on a string and it quickly became known as the Candy Necklace. However, the inventor and location still remain a mystery.
The ever so popular Pop Rocks were accidentally invented by a man named William Mitchell in 1975. He was a food scientist at General Foods, and he had a plan to make an instant soft drink. He put some sugar flavouring and mixed it with carbon dioxide and when he put them together the sensational lolly was born. It became extremely popular around the globe as it caused a mild ‘exploding’ sensation as soon as it is placed in your mouth and created the awesome crackling sound that people of all ages still love to hear.
Fun Fact: A confectioner named Leo Hirshfield named the Tootsie Roll after his daughter, her nickname was Tootsie.
Our Toy Shop Values
Teach our kids today to be the adults of tomorrow so that we can all live in harmony.
We are guided by our values.
Awareness, Community, Compassion, Creativity.
To have awareness is the ability to know, perceive, feel and be conscious of things and people around you. It’s about tuning into feelings, emotions and reactions, and responding in an appropriate way to each situation.
Community means living as a collective group in harmony, sharing a common purpose and goal.
Strong communities have members who look out for each other and contribute towards the common good.
Communities hold each other up. It takes a village to raise a child. The more people work together as a community, the stronger they will collectively become.
Connection, Family, Contribution, Fulfillment.
Courage, Giving, Empathy, Humility.
Moral courage involves doing what is right by others, particularly when the potential risks may involve shame, opposition or their disapproval.
Courage is not about who we claim to be, but rather who we reveal ourselves to be through our words and actions. Actions speak louder than words.
Humility is the quality of being humble and realising that you are no more important than any other person. Those that are humble have little vanity or ego, but realise their own value in society.
Those that are humble put themselves on an equal footing to others around them, seeing too the value in them, and how much more we can be together.
Someone who spends their life taking care of or looking out for others shows humility, by working towards a greater good.
We are greater than ourselves.
To have empathy is the ability to connect with other peoples emotions, and imagine what someone else might be thinking or how they are feeling. It’s about understanding other people and acting with sensitivity towards them.
Empathy is to walk in someone else’s shoes, walk their path, and feel their pain. Empathy is to feel more than your own emotions and to be aware of more than your self.
Fairness, Integrity, Frugality, Kindness.
To demonstrate fairness is to think about how your actions may affect other people, and act accordingly. To be fair means to listen with an open mind, without discrimination, treating everyone as equal whilst remaining impartial. At The Vintage Toy Box we promote fairness as we believe every person is equal and should be treated the same.
Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral and ethical principles that you choose to live and act by. It’s about doing the right thing by others and feeling comfortable that your actions led to something good. Integrity is about choosing to be a decent human being.
Kindness means doing something nice for someone else without expecting anything in return. Kindness is about being respectful and helping others without wanting someone to help you back. The act of being kind is not just being nice but showing empathy and understanding.
Harmony, Loyalty, Honesty, Questioning.
Living in harmony means to live peacefully with others, having an unspoken agreement to have different ideas and feelings and considering this before taking action which may upset the balance.
To show loyalty means you have a strong feeling of support towards someone, and will demonstrate this support to them, and if necessary defend them if required. True loyalty comes from the heart.
To be honest simply means being true to yourself and true to others.
It may be very hard to be honest at times as sometimes being honest can lead to consequences if you have done wrong. Being honest though shows integrity in wanting to right the wrong.
People appreciate honesty, it shows you can be trusted.
It’s always best to be as transparent as possible. There is strength in admitting our faults. We are after all only human.
It is important to question things around you. Questioning is the most simple and most effective way to learn. Brilliant thinkers never stop asking questions because they know it is the best way to receive a deeper insight. The more questions we ask, the more knowledge is gained.
Reliability, Sharing, Resilience, Strength.
Sharing is a vital life skill and our most basic form of human interaction and well-being. Sharing allows us to develop, and most importantly, keep friendships. When you share you get to experience the enjoyment together.
Sharing is caring.
To have resilience means you have the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or tough situations. It means that you have the ability to adapt well. To be resilient means you can 'bounce back'. What doesn’t knock you down, makes you stronger.
Gratitude, Respect, Tolerance, Truth.
Having respect for yourself and others is one of the most important qualities a person can have. Respect is a positive action or feeling towards someone or something that you consider important. You can show respect for others in simple ways like by using polite words, by using positive comments, playing fair and listening to what someone is saying to you, even if you do not agree.
To be tolerant means you have the ability and willingness to accept others.
Teaching children about tolerance is important. As they grow they will learn to accept people who are unlike them in a fair, objective way.
Tolerance is about being patient, having understanding, and accepting ideas, beliefs and opinions in a respectful way.
The world would be a very dull place if we were all the same.
Being truthful allows us to grow and mature and allows others to put their trust in you. When people trust each other they grow together and can conquer anything. Trust is important for society and for forming social bonds.
Teach our kids today to be the adults of tomorrow.
Magic Toys - Trick or Treat?
Halloween, one of the biggest nights of the year is near upon us, and we’ve already started to think what the family theme for this year will be with our scary costumes.
We love trick or treating, as we love to dress up, but more importantly we love taking part in the biggest dress up day on the planet, and seeing all of the effort everyone else has gone to, to go all out spooky!
On All Hallows’ Eve there will only be one question on everyone’s lips ...
Halloween, one of the biggest nights of the year is near upon us, and we’ve already started to think what the family theme for this year will be with our scary costumes.
We love trick or treating, as we love to dress up, but more importantly we love taking part in the biggest dress up day on the planet, and seeing all of the effort everyone else has gone to, to go all out spooky!
On All Hallows’ Eve there will only be one question on everyone’s lips ...
Trick or Treat?
With the war on sugar and preservatives gathering momentum, we take a look at some of our other great alternatives to the traditional trick, (and if you like a bit of magic just like us ... you’re also in for a treat!).
For the biggest trickster in the room there’s our awesome 125 trick magic box, with everything you need for the next Houdini or re-enactment of the epic Now You See Me movie.
The variety of magic tricks set has a whopping 125 incredible magic tricks to practice, and it also includes a DVD with step by step instructions to watch while you practice.
Tricks include: Magic Hat, cups and balls, the paddle tricks, coin magic, thimble tricks, rings and rope tricks, to name but a few!
So get your magic on this Halloween and remember never reveal your secrets!
Be the original prankster this Halloween with our Jokes In a Box set. Five awesome pranks that make it so very easy to catch out your friends and make them jump in surprise!
Includes the classic tricks of Fly & Spider, Goofy Teeth, Snake Eggs, Nail Through Finger and the timeless, Snappy Chewing Gum!
This Mind Reading Magic Tricks set from Robert Frederick is great way to entertain everyone and leave them spooked at how you can read their minds!
This box contains 20 different tricks that you can perfect, including the Mind Reading Blackboard, The Haunted Choice, ESP Card Tricks and the Wizards Deck.
Instant Illusions by Ridley’s Magic is a great collection of tricks to perform for your friends and family, leave them amazed by tricks like the Magic Guillotine, X-ray Vision, Magic Rings and more!
Start your collection and master these tricks in time for Halloween and you will be able to treat your friends to some magical tricks!
The Magic Guillotine will have hearts racing as you perform this trick for your friends.
Simply get a brave friend to put their finger in the hole, then secretly put a pretzel stick (or similar) and into the whole in the bottom.
Push down on the top swiftly and watch as the guillotine magically misses their finger, but cuts thru the pretzel stick at the bottom!
Argh!
Your friend will be reeling from the bloody escape that they’ve just narrowly missed (and you both get to enjoy half a pretzel each!).
The Ridley’s Floating Match trick will mystify your mates.
This simple magic trick has only 2 steps to completion but will have everyone asking “how” forevermore.
Your friends and family will be baffled by this simple yet effective classic trick.
The Rope Cutter trick is an all time classic crowd pleaser that can be mastered easily by children (and adults!) of all ages.
Show people how you magically cut a rope in half and put it back together again, just follow the step by step instructions - easy and fun!
There are many variations of the classic cut and restore rope trick, but this one is one of our favourites. Never fails to amaze!
The Ridley’s Magic Handkerchief is a simple trick that can be performed by anyone with some practice.
In this little trick the handkerchief that is to disappear is seen up to the last moment. The requisites for the trick are very simple, yet trickily effective.
This is a very pretty and deceptive trick. Simply follow the instructions inside the box to perfect the tricks.
Have you ever wanted to have x-ray vision? Well now you can, With this little trick from the “Instant Illusions” collection.
Firstly, fold up the cardboard with the magic symbols into a cube, then place it into the clear plastic cube. Now place the clear cube inside the bigger black cube (which also needs to be assembled), and put the lid on.
Now hand over the black box to the person you’re performing for and ask them to chose a picture.
If you follow the simple step by step instructions included in the box, you will never fail to always know which picture someone has picked! And they will never know how to perform this great trick.
Master the magic in minutes!
Our Magic Linking Rings from Ridleys is a traditional Chinese Magic Ring trick that has been performed by magicians for hundreds of years.
There has been many variations made to this ring trick, which is thought o be a classic of illusion magic.
In the traditional effect, solid metal rings appear to link and unlink, pass through each other, and form chains and other complex patterns and configurations.
This trick needs a lot of practice to perfect but once you do, you’ll be able to trick anyone!
For something completely different, why not try our fantastic Scary Hands temporary tattoos from NPW. Transform your hands into scary hands and scare everyone in sight!
The tattoos are easy to put on with water, and fantastic for encouraging creative play. Create a horror scene, a Halloween scene, or even a monster party. There's no limit to the imagination, and they’ll be guaranteed to scare!
Whatever you choose … trick or treat … we hope you have a spooky spectacular Halloween!
Vintage Toys in Australia
Vintage toys in Australia are fast becoming a sought after commodity, but where do they come from?
After moving over from the UK over 8 years ago, we've noticed that there is a wide shortage of vintage toys in Australia, compared to the UK. This really isn't surprising, considering the brief history of Australia, compared to Europe, where there's a huge abundance of toys from yesteryear flooding the market.
This makes it all the more exciting for us though when we go foraging and come across an old toy from decades ago, often still in great condition. We take great pleasure in then finding out from the owner a bit of history about the toy, particularly details about all the children who used to play with the toy, and who've had so many hours of pleasure holding it in their little hands.
Often though, more times than not, we find that whoever has the vintage toy in their hands often has no idea about where the toy has come from, perhaps picking it up from a market themselves, an antique fair, or perhaps a house clearance. In these instances we need to do a bit of research, in tracking down the history of the toy. Things to look for are details of the manufacturer, the year it was produced, which stores it was sold in, the location of the stores, and the original selling price of the toy. This will generally give you an indication of the demographics of the family that was the likely original holders of the toy. From there you can piece together your own little story about toy ownership, the child, and their family. We love doing this, as it takes us down memory lane, without ever needing to have our own memories to fall back on. It's like stepping back in time, but without the step - what could be more fun?!