December 2008 New Specialty Toys — Personalized

This Teachers version from Kid Hip offers a unique and original way to help teach.  The CD helps to get the class laughing, participating and best of all learning with a personalized CD custom made for the class.  The class will get a kick out of hearing their name and their teacher's name in the 9 educational songs.  There are two CDs to choose from.

These personalized, fun retro boxes come in 12 boy and 12 girl designs. Custom designs are available on request. The boxes measures approximately 8" x 7" x 4". Each has a waterproof vinyl label. Launch date: August 3, 2008.

This creative and fun fashion accessory comes with a Web address and decoder card. It introduces online banking for kids to save for free prizes, and is a great impulse item. It received a 2008 Creative Child Award of Excellence. Launch date: February 14, 2008.

This kit includes everything a young author needs to write and illustrate an inspirational book. It comes with two cover pages, 18 book pages, 10 washable markers, Internet Production drawing tools, and a story planner that references Christian topics and stories from the Bible. Production of the 7" x 9" hardcover book takes three to four weeks.

This kit comes complete with art pages and markers for designing and drawing a keepsake calendar featuring a child's favorite pet(s). Components of the 11" x 17" wall calendar can be submitted online or through the mail, and then it will be laser reproduced within two to three weeks.

Monsters in the closet or under the bed? Parents can ease a classic nighttime fear by posting this sign on their tot's bedroom door. Personalized with a child's name, the sign tells Monsters to KEEP OUT! Each canvas is a museum-quality Giclee art print, gallery wrapped around a high-quality, 1.5" wooden frame. It arrives ready to hang on a door or wall within two weeks of order. "Personalized with a child's name, they give children a sense of ownership over their rooms and a sense that they are in charge," Amy Turner Senftlebe, creative director and president of Toccare Design, LLC & Hip Kid Art, told TDmonthly. Launch date: November 2007.

This jewelry features components laid out in the dot-and-dash pattern of Morse code to "spell" words. "Morse Code Jewelry is never plated, plastic or vermeil," Founder Annie Fields told TDmonthly. Launch date: 2001.

Each 4.25" x 3.5" pad includes 108 stickers with a child's name. More than 100 names are available, and the company offers blue pads for boys and pink for girls.
— "Mulberry Studios has really neat stickers that have children's names on [them]," said Katherine King, manager of Giggles Toys & More in Bozeman, Mont., noting that her store sells 30 to 40 units per month.
— King and one other retailer, out of 51 surveyed, told TDmonthly in September 2008 that the stickers are a best-selling personalized product in their stores.

Pop-up Christmas Album celebrates Christmas through various themes of Christmas decorated with personal photographs of friends and family. This pop-up photo album holds 38 4" x 6" landscape photographs set on 5 thematic pop-up spreads. Each photograph frame is double layered, like a small book, allowing for two photographs to be inserted into each one. The top photograph when lifted reveals the one beneath it, and waiting inside each frame are little hidden surprise pop-ups.

This baby photo album holds 41 4" x 6" landscape photographs. Each photograph frame is double layered, like a small book, allowing for two photographs to be inserted into each one. The top photograph when lifted reveals the one beneath it, and waiting inside each frame are little hidden surprise pop-ups.

The Pop-Up Baby Memory Book is the companion book to the Pop-up Baby Photo Album. Titled "Where Do Babies Come From?" this new book plays on the title by depicting classic stories told to little children about the birth of a baby, it is a unique keepsake for recording memorable moments in baby's life. Represented are tales such as "babies are brought by the stork," "found under a cabbage leaf," "hatched out of eggs," or "babies are bought at the store".