Addis Sit and Store Review

I seem to spend my entire life removing toys from the floor where I want to walk. Storage is an issue in our house. Not necessarily for lack of space, but more for the fact that I'm unwilling to invest in expensive furniture until I'm 100% certain of what I want a room to look like in the long run. This is why the Addis Sit and Store is perfect for us - it is a low cost storage solution that can serve our toy-storage needs well in the near term until I make up my mind about what decor the house needs in the future!

Addis sent us one of their blue Sit and Store storage bins. In total it is about 40cm diameter and about 43cm tall - enough to hold all the Barbies and My Little Ponies that I usually stand on every morning. At the end of the day I can scoop up all the toy debris and place it into the storage bucket and then, as a bonus, I have somewhere to sit when I read the girls their bedtime story. Genius.

Actually, the integrated seat is really the thing that makes this for me. We got rid of the rocking chair in the nursery a long time ago (it was taking up too much space) and since then we have been lying on beanbags or just sitting down on the bedroom floor when it gets to the girls bedtime. I like the Sit & Store because I now have somewhere to perch without feeling that we have taken up valuable floor space with a dedicated stool.

The lid of the bucket has a shaped top designed to accommodate big and little bottoms alike! It is perfectly capable of taking my weight but Lara loves to sit on it too!  The Sit & Store would also make quite a good laundry basket.

This Addis Sit & Store currently costs between £13 and £15 and is available in both blue and red.

 

Trunki Travel Toybox Review

What's that you say? A toybox, by Trunki? The children's travel specialists? Tell me more!... Lara is now the proud owner of a vibrant blue Trunki Travel Toybox to accompany her bright pink Trunki suitcase and, as you can see, she's loving it!

The Trunki Travel Toybox is the kind of product you didn't really know you needed until you tried it and then realised you couldn't live without it. Why would I need a travel toybox? But then, when I thought back to the contents of my own suitcase (and Lara's Trunki suitcase) earlier this year, I realised that it was 25% Lara's belongings... books, crayons, jigsaws, cuddly toys. All of these things I pack into my bag every time we go and stay away for the night (and every time we go and visit Lara's grandparents). Lara now has her own handy toybox that I can put everything in to and then tidily place in the boot of the car when we go on our travels.



The Trunki toybox is not quite square but square enough that it takes up a sensible space wherever you store it. Our Trunki toybox lives in the main living room most of the time and Lara is free to take her toys in and out of it whenever she chooses. Lara regularly packs all of her toys away in it and then puts the lid on.... waits 5 minutes and then takes the lid off, and unpacks the box. Toddlers!!!



The thing Lara loves most about the Trunki is that she can sit on it and I won't tell her off! It is designed for sitting on. Turn the box over and the wheels on the lid mean that your toddler can scootle around until their heart's content. Lara likes to scootle in the living room and the garden but scootling on the grass is not that effective. I'm pretty certain that Lara would LOVE it if I bought her a matching toybox – there is a nifty loop whereby you can string more than one Trunki toybox together and then scootle around like a little train.



I like the concept of the Trunki travel toybox but I think there are one or two practicalities that have been overlooked, which is surprising from Trunki who normally have all these things covered. I'd like to see the attachment mechanism for multiple boxes to be built in – perhaps they could clip together. I also think the lid is too fiddly for little toddler hands. I always have to help Lara close the box and I don't think I would trust the lid to stay closed if I were travelling in public with it. I think it looks great, it is incredibly useful but... it is just a box on wheels at the end of the day. A gorgeously shaped, brightly coloured, tactile box on wheels that my toddler LOVES!