| Smiggle at Manchester Arndale |
Smiggle is an Australian stationery brand, but they have a wide range of gadgets too. The first thing that caught our eyes while we were waiting at the entrance, is their Keep Cool Water Fan. Maybe because we are going on holiday soon, it just stood out from the really colourful store front!
It is a really cool and functioning gadget! Not only is the handheld fan powerful, the water spray really makes it much more cooling than a normal fan! It's the first item we decided to buy (although it's a blogger's event, you really need a strong will to go into Smiggle without buying anything!), but ended up returning it afterwards because we bought something else from Smiggle that has pushed our budget over, and we decided to keep them instead (it was a very difficult decision to make!).
I'll come back to that later.
We were at Smiggle's Manchester Arndale branch to see their limited edition G'Day UK range, as well as their new Camo range, which has been partly released in stores and online, and will be fully released by the end of July.
The G'Day UK (limited edition) range features adorable and fluffy (erasers aren't fluffy of course) Aussie animals! They are super soft, and the keyrings and erasers are scented too! We were really happy to find Clancy the kangaroo pencil case and Aussie scented eraser tub in our goodie bag!
Before they revealed the Camo range, we were given plenty of time to check out Smiggle's products. It was like being in a toy or candy shop, there was so much to see and play with, I can't feature them all here. But these were my favourites from the day:
This scented milkshake carton pencil case can be opened from the side and the top as well. The one in the picture is my favourite, but they have other styles too.
The 3 for £5 section is brilliant! Clay picked up a microphone recorder keyring that really works (pretty loud too!) and a glitter batton, while Abby picked up a packet of sour lemon scented pencils. They were so happy!
The store have colour coded sections and this summery blue with pineapples is my favourite! I would have loved to take that pineapple on the right home!
Other items that are definitely worth mentioning are:
- Retro pencil case (brought back so many primary school memories!) that has several compartments that pops out by pressing a button, each storing different stationery (different styles comes with different items too).
- Footy pencil case that you can play finger footy on (ideally not during class!)
- Squidgy water bottle that can be folded (elastic band to keep it folded). The benefit of having this!
We were well looked after by Smiggle and indulged in cupcakes and smoothies during the event! And then we were shown the sneak peak of their latest Camo range:
The Camo range features different animals, critters and nature in the pattern, which makes them much more interesting and appealing than normal camouflage products. The key items though, had to be the "anti-spy" journals and spy pens! The journals have heat sensitive patches on the cover, and changes colour after being touched. The pens on the other hand have an invisible ink marker on one end (normal ball point on the other), and a UV light cap that reveals what is written in the ink. It has wowed the kids during the event, and Abby picked up a Camo spy pen too!
The full range will be released at the end of July, but you can buy some of the Camo products (including the spy pens) already in store and online.
We really enjoyed Smiggle's G'Day UK Bloggers event at their Manchester Arndale branch. Staff were very helpful, informative and friendly, we were well looked after, and we really like their products! They aren't just novelty items either. Products like the Keep Cool Water Fan are functionable and very well at it, and items like the Camo range has beautiful, well thought designs too.
And the goodie bag! We love everything inside it, thank you Smiggle!
Oh! And the reason why we had to return the Keep Cool Water Fan is because we bought 2 Smiggle Play Art Headphones (at a really good price too because they are currently £10 each if you spend over £15 in store!), which has really good reviews! The volume is limited to 85dB so I don't have to worry about the kids blasting the sound, are comfortable and have really nice playful designs. The cable is long enough too. This will be great for when one of them is complaining about the other having the sound on their gadget too loud, or for when we go on the plane (we bought plane microphone adapters) because they will be more comfortable for the kids and I again don't have to worry about sound volume.
Now the only thing I need to do is to make sure that the kids don't use it all the time and become anti-social.
We will definitely be visiting Smiggle again!
