The Monster Mash-Up

It’s hard to think of October without thinking of candy, trick or treating, pumpkins, and costumes. It’s also the time when you watch scary movies, tell ghost stories, and sleep with the lights on. This month in the “Toy Box,” I’ve found some great toys to celebrate this month without giving you the urge to check under the bed when you go to sleep.

First, there’s the Design Your Own Monster from curlyqcuties.com. These aren’t the monsters that go “bump” in the night. They’re the ones that you cuddle with when you sleep. Design Your Own Monster is a stuffed monster that you get to create by going to designamonster.com or curlyqcuties.com and clicking on what size monster you wish to create. Then you are taken to a monster creator where you pick the body, eyes, mouth, belly shape, and colors of your monster. For a little extra, you can even have the monster embroidered. They cost between $25 for the smallest (11.5 inches tall) to $135 for the extra-large (2.5 feet tall), and you can buy them at designamonster.com.

If the design part is more up your alley, Fuzzoodles may be right for you. Fuzzoodles can be easily described as Mr. Potato Head, but instead of a potato you have pipe cleaners. The kits come with several long and short pipe cleaners as well as eyes, mouths, and other accessories that give you a wide range of creation. When I first saw this product, I was a little wary of the pipe cleaners. The pipe cleaners you normally think of are pretty small and wimpy. However, the Fuzzoodle pipecleaners were larger than I expected, and the fuzz in the pipe cleaner is actually pretty lush. The accessories have hooks that keep them in place and the set also comes with an idea booklet that shows you how to make some Fuzzoodles and also gives you some techniques that you can use to design your own. The big box cost $20, but there are smaller boxes that are $10. You can buy them at ToysRUs or at Amazon.com.

Finally, who can think of Halloween without thinking of The Great Pumpkin. From the pages of It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, comes Yahtzee. I had never played Yahtzee before seeing this, and I have to admit I really like the game. With Yahtzee, you have five dice and you roll them three times with the aim of getting certain sets of numbers. After three rolls, you write your score on the score card, and then it’s the next person’s turn (unless you’re playing by yourself, and then you get to go again). Once the scorecard is full, the person with the highest score wins. What makes the Charlie Brown version of Yahtzee different is that the dice have all your favorite characters on their sides with the number in the corner. I didn’t have a problem distinguishing between the sides, but you may want to start off slowly so you don’t confuse some of the drawings. The cost of the game is $17 on Amazon.com. And if you want more Great Pumpkin, you can also play The Great Pumpkin Countdown at www.greatpumpkincountdown.com and win some prizes.

Find Them Online:
Design Your Own Monster
Fuzzoodles
It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Yahtzee