Don’t roll your eyes at me just yet, it might seem early for a Christmas competition but hear me out…

I have teamed up with a few South African brands to bring you a really fun competition. All the brands are things I really like so I’m actually channeling Oprah and giving you “my favourite things” of sorts. Because I really like the brands and the products I want to tell you all about them individually and that takes time…time we don’t have as Christmas is like ten weeks away.

Basically I have a gift bag at home…every Tuesday and Thursday I will introduce you to a great stocking stuffer idea and then stuff a gift from that brand into the bag, so at the end of my competition run. (First week of December) I will announce a winner who will have a bag full of treats delivered to their home.  I did something similar last year, see here.

This year I’m changing things up, the gifts will not all be for the winner, well it will be…

Allow me to explain. I will be putting gifts for all ages and  preferences in the bag which means you can use my gift to you to gift to other people in your life (cutting that Santa bill) I am so excited!!! like insanely excited!!!

Especially when it comes to our first addition to the Christmas competition.

Handcrafted wooden toys from Rocking Toys

Let me tell you the story about this small business.

Aidan and I were at a local craft market when I spotted the most amazing wooden toys and it was at such a steal that I literally no jokes went back  to the car to get more money (because it’s a market and Aidan already wanted all the things)

I got chatting to the crafter, Blackie Swart and his story is just the sweetest.

A pensioner for the last two years, he found himself with a challenge “How to keep busy?”

“I started off with gardening, but with the drought and water restrictions that avenue became obsolete,” he said.

“My wife was (is) the drive behind me. She would get home with all funny ideas of things to make just to keep me busy. When her daughter became pregnant we all underwent a mind shift – everything became baby orientated and that is when the rocking horse idea came about.”

Although it was a challenge, he enjoyed making it and sort of continued making toys untill he ended up with  way more than he needed.

“At the end it was a case of what now? What am I going to do with all these rockers? It was then that I’ve decided to join the Uitenhage Market at Willow Dam.”

“My first exhibit was the end of June 2017 and it was terrible! The market was ‘dead’ and the few people that were there walked right pass my little patch. I was horrified and discouraged at the same time until one man stopped to admire my handy work and mentioned that he made wooden toys for crèches and that is when the idea to make toys were born,” said Blackie

His toys are currently available at the monthly markets in my home town,  at the Uitenhage Market at Willow Dam and Die Plaasmark in Despatch.

You can contact him on 0796134619, he is here in Nelson Mandela Bay

And you can win these beauties on my blog by commenting which of his items you like the most and following the prompts.