Fisher-Price Discovery Cottage Review

In the 1990s, when our children were young, they had a few very memorable toys and a few of them were by Fisher-Price. I remember a few in particular and one of the first ones was this Fisher-Price Discovery Cottage. 

This cottage was recommended for children aged 12 to 36 months and featured a house with a number of manually activated elements, two chunky Jumbo Little People figures, a person and a dog, and a tricycle. The figures were perfectly sized, bigger than other Little People, which allowed the youngest child to easily grasp them without the risk of choking. 

The house featured these interactive elements:

• A blue front door that opened with a clicking sound and has a hole to put a figure into.
• A rubber doorbell that rang when you pushed the red button. This button was the one part of the house that did not necessarily stand the test of time on a much loved house. Ours was broken from being depressed so many times.
• The opposite side had a garage door that flipped down to allow access for the tricycle to the parking area.
• Beside the garage door, was a butterfly that pushed up and down and made a clicking sound.
• One side of the roof lifted to reveal a bed and another hole, either of which that could hold a figure.
• The other, fixed side of the roof featured a chimney slide for your figure to slide through.
• The final side of the house had a roller that spun and displayed different images.
• Finally, the house had a handle so that your child could carry it around.

Our little ones played with this toy extensively, initially in a very basic way. I can picture my son putting the figure down the chimney over and over and over again. Eventually they played with it in a more imaginative way using the house as a home for the people.

Apparently, there were a few different versions of this house as is evidenced by a commercial that I viewed recently that shared how this toy had evolved in response to the play style of children. That video featured Fisher-Price's slogan that somehow seems very familiar to me, "Fisher-Price. Children taught us all we know."

Beyond the imaginative play, the Discovery Cottage helped my children learn about shapes and  develop hand-eye coordination. If the toy company still made it, I would buy one for baby gifts. Meanwhile, if you want one you will likely have to settle for a used one, which can be found here on eBay. Make sure to buy extra figures because this house could definitely hold more Jumbo Little People!

See you
at the toy store!
Brenda
Treasures By Brenda

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Check out the new, used and vintage Fisher-Price toys in my eBay store.

Canadian Pickers Television Show

SPOILER ALERT! This post discusses the places the Canadian Pickers visit and the people they meet on the first episode of Season 4.

I just watched what may be the best-ever episode of the television show Canadian Pickers. The show always resonates with me because it's filmed in Canada and I'm a Canadian and because I have travelled to many of the places that hosts Scott Cozens and Sheldon Smithens visit. However, there was something about this show that made me really, really, really, want to go picking, shopping, thrifting or whatever you call it right NOW...

I love how the show started out in a barber shop in Toronto that celebrates the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey team in full color, even though hockey is not my favorite sport.

I also enjoyed the second visit in Toronto to the kind of antique store that I would like to shop in, one that's filled to the rafters with stuff including odds and ends and interesting bits and pieces. Both Scott and Sheldon met the challenge of finding a great item for resale purposes at a cost of $50. I am not sure I could have met the challenge but it would have been fun to try.

Next the show took us to visit a couple who built a home of logs. The couple also constructed the garage to look like an old-time service station. How cool is that? I'm not so interested in the stuff that the Canadian Pickers picked here but the location was pretty interesting and I think it would make a good set up for an eBay seller, but I digress…

Next we visited the home of a 16-year-old who both collects for himself and operates a business buying and selling antiques. We enter a suburban home not unlike the one that I live in, and there are no collectible items in sight. It turns out that the young man keeps all of his antiques in his bedroom. If you ever get the chance to see this episode, prepare to be amazed. I think it is really great what this young man has learned and accomplished so far about antiques and about negotiating. In the show footage, he appeared to have no trouble matching wits with the Canadian Pickers.

It was a fabulous episode of an always interesting show. If you haven't tuned into the Canadian Pickers, which I believe is known as the Cash Cowboys in some markets, what are you waiting for? At each pick you will meet some interesting people, learn a great story and uncover some history.

I know from experience that it is not as easy to gather a bunch of great places to “pick” as this show made it look. On a recent vacation, when we had a few hours to shop, we struggled to find some good stops because we had not done any advance planning. We did not come home empty-handed, but we weren't as successful as we could have been.  

We did find some collectible Alexander Keith's products as well as some beautiful handmade baby quilts, which are nothing like what you usually see the Canadian Pickers picking but nevertheless are still quite interesting and will make a beautiful addition to a baby's nursery either as a crip or lap quilt or as a wall hanging. As an added bonus, these purchases will pay for the gas for our Nova Scotia vacation.

How about you? Do you watch any of the shows about antiques, collectibles, auctions, collecting, picking or even just vintage-style? Which ones would you recommend?

EDITED 2019 to note that the Canadian Pickers program finished and the Facebook page wound down around 2014.

Brenda

Treasures By Brenda

You never know what treasures

I might have in store for you!