What's New In December 2023
This month we're open every day until Christmas Day. Here are our holiday hours...
- Monday/Tuesday: 11am-2pm
- Wednesday-Friday: 10am-6pm
- Saturday: 10am-5pm
- Sunday: 11am-5pm
We expanded our book section! Check out our handsome shelf...
We also expanded our plush selection! Instead of having Douglas spill out all over our store we now have it contained in two towers.
We've got a bunch of new Board Games, and many of the old ones are severely discount. We have two shelves at 33% Off and another two shelves at 50% Off.
We expanded Cap Guns section! We've had plastic novelty cap guns for a while, but we just brought in some diecast ones. The beautiful rifle on the bottom left is diecast & wood.
The past two holiday seasons we ran out of Lava Lamps before Christmas. This year we stocked up. They came out with a ton of beautiful varieties this year.
Screwball Scramble 1 & 2 are out on display. The goal is to guide your marble through the obstacle course using the buttons and levers at the bottom. It can be a bit frustrating at times, but it's also very very fun and addicting. Once you master the course, the goal is to do it as fast as possible. I didn't take a picture, but we also have the brand new Screwball Scramble Level Up in stock.
We brought in four new STEM companies this year and our shelves our STOCKED. We've got several DIY car kits, Galileo and Fitzroy barometers, a couple of new electronics kits, and a bunch of other stuff. Ages range from 3 to 14+.
Also on the engineering side we brought in 3 sizes of Star Coaster Marble Rollercoasters. We carried Version 2 last year and Version 3 the previous. Now we have 2, 3, and 5; which looks super deluxe. These are for older kids, but we also have a rollercoaster building kit that's appropriate for ages 7+ (you can see it on the right side of the new bookshelf picture).
Jean Curvey brought in a bunch of new ceramic figurines and Christmas tree ornaments. There are some super cute designs in this wave.
In the Yellow Playcade this month we have an Engineering Floating Bathblocks set. I built a small boat on Small Business Saturday and kids have been adding onto since then.
In the Red Playcade we have Magnetic Blocks and a Fantacolor Peg Drawing Board.
This week we're getting more blind box figurines and Paradox Rift Pokemon Cards (and some oldies too). I'll make another post in a couple of weeks.
Apparently an indoor amusement park named "Funky Planet" opened in a mall somewhere in Kazakhstan. A recent visitor graciously uploaded photos of the park to our Google Maps page yesterday. Hopefully Google removes the pictures soon, because I already got a call from someone. Maybe someday we'll be a Toy Store/Amusement Park/Toddler Playroom/Bookstore/Arcade/Pinball Gallery/Mahjong Parlor/Fun Land, but not yet 😀
~David
Black Friday & Small Business Saturday
Happy Thanksgiving! I wish I had time to make a more detailed post, but here's the basics.
We're having massive sales on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and the following Sunday.
Here's what's on sale...
- All Board Games: Sales range from 10% to 50%
- All Jigsaw Puzzles: Sales range from 10% to 50%
- All Books: Sales range from 10% to 50%
- About 50 different toys are 33% to 66% off. More will be discounted as they sell.
On Wednesday we've got about 5 different shipments coming in too. We're expecting more books, more building kits, a whole mess of kites, new blind boxes, and a ton of new enamel pins. Yesterday we got a big shipment of stocking stuffers (just in time!)
Hope to see you soon!
~David
What's New In October 2023
Too much is new. So much so that I've been procrastinating on making a new post. I hope to add pictures soon, but for now, here's a list of everything...
- As of today, new Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty in Large and Mini tins.
- Pokemon 151 trading card game sets arrived last week.
- New keychains and stickers, mostly from one of our Japanese and Korean distributors.
- New blind boxes including Japanese ones featuring cute animals and some Kirby & Mario ones.
- Screwball Scramble is on display. We have versions 1, 2, and the brand new vertical version.
- Farm sets plus a John Deere ride-on tractor and a John Deere balance bike.
- New soft dolls. They're very cute.
- Mad Mattr Bags, Pods, and Mini Packs. We'll be getting some deluxe sets before the holidays.
- A TON of new arts & crafts kits, including Diamond Dotz.
- The new Mushroom Airforts are in.
- Two Bros. Bow's new Juggling Sticks.
- New Wooden Puzzles by Creative Crafthouse. The Idiot Stick is also back in stock.
- A few STEM & Robitics Kits.
- A bunch of retro toys.
- Many many many many more things I don't know how to classify.
We placed a huge order for Douglas Plushies. We also plan on ordering books, additional plushies, squishies, fidgets, sea monkeys, lava lamps, and a whole mess of stocking stuffers this month.
We had our last outdoor event of the year at Heritage Farms last Sunday. Super fun!
Alton Mainstreet's 'First Fridays' are on. The next one will be on November 3rd. Always fun!
We have a semi-devoted clearance section. Toys are anywhere between 40-75% off.
The Toys for Tots bin is already in.
Uhh, that's off the top of my head. All right, I gotta get back to work!
~David
What's New in August 2023
First off, we now have a 3rd Toy Tower! We also restocked our squishy, fidget, and novelty toys.
Wow!
We added two new makers to our "Made in Alton" collection!
Steph Plant is an Alton-based artist/author/musician and Montessori teacher. She wrote the children's book 'Slithering Snake' and also put out an album of children's music called 'Moth Wings & Other Things'. You can now buy them both at our store!
We've read Slithering Snake to Clover a billion times
Evan Merli hails from Bethalto and has put out his first game entitled 'What's Your Excuse'. This party game is a ton of fun and takes less than a minute to teach. The reader draws a card with an accusatory statement, and then each other player has one minute to word-vomit an excuse. The reader then votes on which excuse is the best. Sage and I recently played the game with a group of four and it was a blast. We've got family visiting us this month, and I'm excited to play it again.
We've got a ton of new magnetic-based toys, including Mix & Match Animals, Mix & Match Cars, Magnetic Build-a-Car, Electro-Magnetic Experiment Kit, and a cool Magnetic Ring Game.
We restocked our Maisto Diecast! We've got all kinds of new 1:64 vehicles, some pullback monster trucks, and some nice looking motorcycles.
1:64 diecast cards, pullback monster trucks, VW vans, cool cars, semis, and motorcycles
New Blue Q bags are in! We really like the new designs. We also brought in some of Blue Q's catnip pouches.
Doggy bags, change purses, zipper pouches, shoulder totes, and catnip.
We've got a lot of orders on the horizon. This month we're expecting new stickers, keychains, tabletop games, blind boxes, and old-school wooden novelties. In September the new Pokemon Scarlet & Violet 151 sets drop (very excited). I'm also hoping to order massive amounts of plushies, books, and science kits.
~David
Closed Until Aug 9th
We're closed for the first week of August. We'll reopen Wednesday August 9th at 10am.
Funky Planet 2 Year Anniversary!
Be sure to join us Saturday, July 22nd for a lot of fun!
We can't wait to celebrate 2 years of Funky Planet!
- Artisan cotton candy pop-up shop from 10-4 (or until sold out)
- Free concert and book reading with Steph Plant at 12pm
- Free kid's yoga with Stephanie Greenhalgh at 2pm
What's New in June 2023?
We've got a lot of new stuff, and a lot more on the way...
We just received a Quercetti shipment! This Italian brand might be the kings of marble-based toys. We've got a new Marble Run, a new Marble Race Set, and a new Marble Roller Coaster. We also got some unique artsy toys, and some super cool interactive baby toys...
The Marble Race Set and the huge Marble Rollercoaster
Play Form is a house of cards style construction set and Filo is a string art tablet
Fantacolor is a portable peg art set and Magnetic Fashion Dolls are exactly what you think they are
Fantacolor also comes in a chunky 1+ year variety, and Chunky Peggy is like a big chunky pegboard with rattling pegs
And here are some other new things...
New Usborne/Kane Miller books shipment, and Constructive Eating utensils
Miniature backpack keychains and stone carvings of cats and frogs; turtles were out of stock :(
I just placed orders for some amazing looking tabletop action games, a bunch of new preschool toys, a ton of diecast vehicles (cars, trucks, tractors, jeeps, motorcycles), new creative buildings toys, and some new collectable figurines. I might have to make another post in a week.
We had our first Pokemon Trade & Play night last Friday. I learned a lot! It's a bit overstimulating to have battling and trading going on in the same corner of the store, so next time I'm going to have trading on one side of the store and battling on the other. Also, now that I know how to play the trading card game (shoutout to Theo) I can help teach it at the next event.
Next event date/time to be determined. 4th of July threw us a curveball.
The Alton Night Market on Broadway started last week... and we have a booth! We've done 2 nights so far and they're a lot of fun. There are a ton of cute shops, live music, cool dogs to pet, and an all-around chill atmosphere. The Night Market takes place in the alleyway next to the Jacoby Arts Center every Thursday from June through July. Come check it out!
[Picture coming soon]
We're also going to have a booth at the Godfrey Family Fun Fest at Glazebrook Park! That's on the 4th of July. I'm excited to see some fireworks.
Last, WE'LL BE CLOSED WEDNESDAY JUNE 28TH for Clover's first Birthday. I've got family from Minnesota and New Jersey visiting us, and I want to make sure I can spend time with them.
~David
What's New in May 2023
As always, we have a bunch of new stuff in the store.
We now carry Hot Wings! Each die-cast aircraft also comes with a foam piece of runway. The runways connect together like a puzzle, so each time you buy one you get a bigger and bigger runway. We also sell runway expansion sets, and a big control tower.
Choose between Blue Angel, Helicopter, Airforce One, or Biplane
Tons of board games are still on sale. We have about 20 titles at 25% off and 10 titles at 15% off. Most of them have only one copy left. A lot of the titles are strategy based, but there are a few family and kids games mixed in too. Some of them are 50% off of what you'll find on Amazon.
Titles as of May 1st include Upon a Fable, Lost Explorers, Planes, Castles of Burgundy, My Village, Skull King, Cover Your Assets, Cover Your Kingdom, K3, Mad Scientist Foundation, Subtext, Rollers Deluxe, Castellan, YumYum Island, Carcassone, Quoridor Kid, Cube Duel, Slapzi, Katamino, Nuts About Mutts, Colt Super Express, Bears & The Bees, Flipover Frog, Kitten Klash, Stick Up, and last but certainly not least Wasteland Express. More will be added as they sell. If the price is still higher than Amazon/Target/Walmat (new and in-stock) we will price match.
Groovy.
We've got a bunch of new arts & crafts. Some of the new arrivals include Diamond Dots, a variety of Macrame Kits, extremely cute DIY Miniature Houses, and Wooden Model Kits.
Click an image for a closeup.
We've got some cool space-themed playsets. You can choose between a Rocket Ship, a Rover, or a Space Capsule.
They all open up so the astronaut can ride inside.
Volleyball is back in the arcade cabinet. It's one of my favorite 2-Player games.
Next Level Graphics!
We also have a bunch of new keychains, stickers, squishy things, and old-school novelties I didn't take pictures of. We'll be getting a small Pokemon Card shipment soon too. We just placed a book order with Usborne and Kane Miller, so those should be arriving soon. Once we sell through some more old stock I'd like to once again expand the book section. You really can't have too many.
That's all for now!
~David
What's New in April 2023?
I skipped March so a lot is new.
Yesterday's post was an April Fool's joke. We still have the Playcade, and some new toys are being featured. We just got a PicassoTiles shipment so our mini tiles are on display...
Magnetic buildings tiles of all varieties
We've got a Floating Bath Block Engineering Set...
STEM Engineering and Adventure House
We've still got the Rubber Band Guns on display...
Choose between a pistol and a mini Winchester rifle
And we've got a Dinosaur Gear Playset...
Collapses into a compact suitcase
We have some new Glow in the Dark Track Sets. Each set comes with a battery operated vehicle that zooms around the flexible track. You can now choose between Dinosaur, Construction, or Racing sets. When people come in looking for a gift for a 3-5 year old we almost always suggest these. They never disappoint.
Deluxe
We have a Rocket Ship Tent on display...
A giant leap for babykind
We have a bunch of new wooden puzzles and playsets for preschoolers...
Wooden Puzzles, Build-a-Bots, and Tin Tops
And we have a ton of new jigsaw puzzles for older kids and adults...
Piece counts range from 3 to 2000
New Pokemon Scarlet & Violet boosters are in. We also have a bunch of deluxe sets.
We also still have some Silver Tempest and Lost Origin left
We also have a lot of new Board Games and Books too. Tons of the old Board Games and Books are 25% off.
I really can't cover it all. There's a ton of other stuff like new plushies, NeeDoh, cap guns, playsets, diecast planes, baby and pre-school toys, and a bunch of other random stuff I'm forgetting. Come on in and check it out!
~David