Stuff from Christmas 2014 that worked out: cats, colouring pencils, thinking putty, paper.

These Prang colouring pencils are the nicest we have ever had. They're triangular, chunky, have lovely strong colours that don't need adult strength to appear on the page and come with a brilliant sharpener. Stationary nerds like myself will love them. And of course, the children of stationary nerds who end up using them. There is so much colouring stuff out there that is just not very colourful - but not these - they're really worth getting.

This Ziggie Cat was a success. Its smaller than I expected but definitely as soft as I hoped. Its a funny shape, but when my son holds it I can see how it works - his (the cats!) waist/neck is deliberately narrow to accommodate the hand grasp of little kids. Which means for the first few days he never put it down. The crazy eyes  are pretty cool too.

I must admit, when I saw these Thinking Puttys on the letter to Santa I was not thrilled. Actually my heart sank, assuming it was overpriced, overhyped rubbish. But then my eavesdropping taught me that they were the most wanted of everything on his list. So there it was. Thinking Putties are a playdough-ish type stuff that change colour when heated or cooled or bounce or have some other "amazing" skill. Anyhoo, its January 9th now and they are still being heated, cooled, bounced and squeezed, so maybe I was wrong. Just maybe. (Those tins are about €4 each and as tiny as they look. I must admit though, he loves them. In the picture above, its 7.30 am on Christmas morning and he's saying "Cool! I got them!")

And lastly, this roll of plain, white paper (probably my cheapest purchase over the festive season) is just great. There just something about the size of it that attracts the most reluctant artist.