Coles Little Shop Miniatures Hack – Barbie Supermarket

If you aren’t already aware Coles in Australia are offering Little Shop miniatures with every $30 you spend. But you are probably like me and wondering what on earth you are going to do with yet another little collectable thingy-ma-jig that your child insists on collecting.

This has to be the best, the most creative, the most imaginative way I have seen collectable miniatures used.

“Little Shop features 30 iconic household brands – including Vegemite, Nutella and Weet-Bix – shrunk down into a miniature replica for customers to collect and swap.”

Tammy from DIY Kmart Mums has created a Mattel Mini mart just for Barbie, well actually it is actually for her (very lucky) daughter. I can’t believe the detail in the furniture and shop fittings, Tam admits it has taken her months of work. I know what you are thinking does she get to play with it? Yes, her daughter uses gentle hands to pretend play with Barbie.

Check out the rest of the handmade store below.

Kids all seem to go through a phase of loving trivia, and if you’ve got kids who want to know about the tallest, biggest and weirdest things in nature, they’ll enjoy the book Once in a Blue Moon by Emily Hawkins.

The book explores wonders of astronomy, meteorology, big trees, weird animals, volcanoes and more to show off the rarest events and phenomena in the natural world.

Kids ages 7-10 will learn about the lake (Lake Hillier, on an island off Australia) that has water that’s bubblegum pink, the world’s deepst came (Veryovkina Cave in the country of Georgia) and the world’s biggest tree, a banyan in southeast India with a canopy that covers more than five acres!

Readers will learn what a blue moon is, how supernovas happen and about Haley’s comet and solar eclipses, among other space-related phenomena. Closer to home they’ll learn about stinky flowers, bleeding trees, glowing fungi and pizzly bears.

There’s content about times when it’s rained frogs (and when frogs have exploded en masse), when snow made giant snowballs all by itself and how clouds stack on themselves like pancakes. The book also explores ball lightning, sun dogs, St. Elmo’s fire and more.

I love books like this and I know kids do, too. There’s so much weird and wonderful about our world and even as adults we don’t know about all of these things. I found it fun to learn, for example, that there’s a volcano on the island of Java that not only sends out blue flames from vents near its crater, it’s also home to an acidic lake.

Illustrations by Vlad Stankovic illuminate these weird natural wonders and are sure to get kids interested in learning more about some of these remarkable animals, plants, rock formations and more.

About the book: 80 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $30.

Have you read?