Colouring-in-kit

My all time favourite childhood present was a colouring in set (2 actually) that my dad bought me home from FAO Schwartz on a work trip to New York City! At the time he was the editor of TIME magazine Australia, and as it was headquartered in NYC, so he was lucky enough to fly there twice on business conference trips! The first time he went there he bought me back a colouring in set that looked just like the one below- black, smallish (if you can call it that, I guess because I am thinking of it in comparison to the second one!) with the array of oil paints, crayons, pencils and textas you'd imagine to find in a colouring in set. I loved it dearly and it was well used.

Thanks to my beloved friend Jess for posting this picture- was a good opportunity to tell this story :)

The second trip my dad went on to New York (I'm guessing about two years later) he bought me back, in my mind what was a, gigantic colouring-in-set inside you could call nothing else but a wooden suitcase. I loved it for two reasons- the first being that I had my own suitcase just like the one my dad had for work, I felt so grown up. The second reason being that it was any child's dream- when you only know the 7 colours of the rainbow and a few more , to suddenly discover there are multiple shades of pinks and blues and yellows....it opens up a whole new world. My mum wouldn't let me take them to school so they were extra special. My favourite were the coloured pencils.  I was careful not to sharpen the pencils down too much as I knew they were from the other side of the world and were practically irreplaceable!

I had always tried to imagine what FAO Schwartz would be like- all I knew was that it was a toy store, and one of the biggest and best in the world so I had pictured some sort of fantasy toy land. So I promised myself if I ever went to NYC I would definately visit the FAO Schwartz shop in memory of my dad. So last year I did! Here are some pictures I took while I was there...

I scoured the store for hours to find my wooden colouring in suitcase, but over 15 years later it's no wonder it is still not in stock! I took a picture of the closest thing I could find:

I got talking to the FAO Schwartz "toy solider" guarding the entrance and, feeling sentimental, told him my story about how my late father getting me 2 colouring-in-kits from the store and bringing them all the way back to Australia and ever since it has been a life long dream of mine to visit the store! He said he was very touched and asked a passerby to take a photo :)