DEV3 Playnest – Free Kids & Toys Store WordPress Theme with Gift Finder, Age Filters & Gift Wrap

A free, bright WooCommerce theme for toy and kids' shops: shop by age, interest and budget, a no-JavaScript gift finder, text safety and age labels, gift wrap, bundle deals, Birthday Club and 40 demo products. No 3D, light motion only.

by DEV3 TechnologiesVerified Author(0) 0 downloads 0 viewsUpdated 06 Nov 2026

DEV3 Playnest is a free WooCommerce theme for toy shops, kids' stores and gift shops. It is built to look like a bright, playful retail store and not like a nursery brochure: cream canvas, ink outlines, sticker-style cards, pill buttons and one colour per category. Motion is light (a hero slideshow with a slow drift, reveals, a ticker strip, a lift on hover) and respects reduced motion. There is no 3D or WebGL in the theme at all.

Sign in to download it for free. There is no public live demo: watch the video tour at the top of this page, or step through the screenshots at desktop, tablet and phone sizes.

Made for toy shops

  • Shop by age, interest and budget. A filter bar with age chips and two selects sits on the shop and category pages. It is a plain GET form, so it works without JavaScript and every result has a shareable link.
  • A gift finder that asks three questions (age, interest, budget) and shows the best-rated toys that fit. If nothing matches every answer, it widens the search and says so.
  • Safety and age labels as text. Cards show "Ages 3+" and "Small parts" or "Strong magnets"; the product page shows the age range, material labels and the full warning in a highlighted box.
  • Gift wrap with a gift note on every product page, added to the cart as one clear fee and saved on the order line.
  • Bundle deals that list what is in the box, what the toys cost on their own and the exact saving.
  • Birthday Club sign-up that asks only for a birthday month and an age group, never a child's name.
  • Mini-cart drawer with a free-delivery progress bar, quick view, a wishlist and colour swatches.
  • A shop-by mega menu with age, interest and category columns, three header layouts and three product page layouts.

A photo hero that sells

The toolkit's Photo Hero widget opens every page: one photo or a cross-fading slideshow, overlay or gradient, a slow Ken Burns drift, a split headline with a highlighted word, buttons and chips.

Built for editing

Every demo page is built in Elementor (free) with the DEV3 Theme Toolkit widgets (product grid and carousel, category showcase, counters, FAQ), and 24 block patterns cover the same sections for the block editor. The demo has 40 products (34 toys and 6 bundles) in 10 categories. Fonts are self-hosted. The demo photos are free-licence (CC0) stock photos listed in PHOTO-CREDITS.md, shown without children's faces; product pictures are original illustrations of generic toys. All brands, reviews, ratings and safety data are fictional sample data.

How it's built

Architecture, stack, key decisions and the quality gates DEV3 Playnest passed before release.

Our own free toy-store WooCommerce theme: shop by age, interest and budget, a gift finder that needs no JavaScript, text safety labels, gift wrap, bundle deals and a Birthday Club, on the no-3D theme core.

The problem it solves

Parents and gift-givers do not shop toys by category. They think 'something for a four-year-old who loves trains, under $30'. A toy shop also has duties a fashion shop does not: age grades, small-parts warnings and gift presentation have to be obvious, in text, before the add-to-cart button. Playnest had to be bright and playful without looking like a nursery, avoid children's faces and licensed characters, stay editable in Elementor, and ship no 3D or WebGL code.

Architecture and approach

Playnest is a classic PHP theme with theme.json on DEV3's shared theme core in flat mode: a build gate fails the theme if any three.js or WebGL code reaches its assets, and the always-loaded JavaScript is about 12 KB gzipped.

Shop-by uses two global WooCommerce attributes (Age and Interest) and a budget parameter, rendered as a GET form so it works without JavaScript. The gift finder is an inline tag that reads three query values, builds a tax and price query, and relaxes it step by step when nothing matches. Safety data lives in product fields and is printed as text on cards and product pages. Gift wrap is a cart-item option with a single fee line, and bundle products compute their saving from the toys they contain.

Quality gates and results

Playnest ships as a free download with a one-click demo: 40 products (34 toys and 6 bundles) in 10 categories, 22 pages and posts, 24 block patterns, 26 free-licence photos and original toy illustrations.

It passes PHP lint, WordPress coding standards (0 errors, 0 warnings), Theme Check with no required issues, the WooCommerce checkout flow with the drawer, an Elementor editor test, and its no-3D gate.

Tech stack

Area Technologies
Frontend DEV3 Motion, Photo Hero, Elementor widgets, Block patterns
Platform WordPress 6.0+, PHP 7.4+, WooCommerce, Contact Form 7, DEV3 Theme Toolkit

Inside the build

Photo hero slideshow: a full-screen toy-shop hero with a split headline, shop buttons and trust chips under a sunshine announcement bar. Photo hero slideshow — a full-screen toy-shop hero with a split headline, shop buttons and trust chips under a sunshine announcement bar.

Ticker and promises: a scrolling category strip and four sticker cards for delivery, gift wrap, age labels and returns. Ticker and promises — a scrolling category strip and four sticker cards for delivery, gift wrap, age labels and returns.

Guides & articles

Practical guides and engineering write-ups for DEV3 Playnest.

A free toy-store WooCommerce theme with a gift finder: Playnest

Last updated
A free toy-store WooCommerce theme with a gift finder: Playnest: DEV3 Playnest

People rarely shop for toys by category. They think "a gift for a four-year-old who loves trains, under $30". DEV3 Playnest is a free WooCommerce theme built around that question, with clear age grades, honest safety labels and gift wrap, in a bright retail look that is easy to edit in Elementor.

The Playnest home page: a full-screen photo hero of a teddy bear beside a wooden crate, with the headline

Video tour of the Playnest demo: the hero, shop by age, the filter bar, the gift finder, a product page and the mini-cart

Who Playnest is for

  • Toy shops and kids' stores that need age grades, warnings and gift options.
  • Gift shops and baby boutiques that sell bundles and gift sets.
  • Agencies that want a playful store theme the client can edit.

Shop by age, interest and budget

Four colour-coded tiles on the home page open the shop filtered to an age group. On the shop and category pages a filter bar adds interest and budget. It is a plain form, so it works without JavaScript and each result page has a shareable link.

The Playnest shop with an age and interest filter bar above sticker-outline product cards

A gift finder for the undecided

Three big questions (age, interest, budget) lead to the best-rated toys that fit. If nothing matches every answer, the finder widens the search and tells the shopper it did.

The Playnest gift finder results for ages 3 to 4, Building, $30 to $60

Safety and age labels, in plain text

Cards show the age grade and warning tags such as "Small parts". The product page lists the age range, the material labels and the full warning in a highlighted box, above the add-to-cart button.

A Playnest product page with age range, safety labels, a small-parts warning and a gift wrap option

Gift wrap and bundle deals

A tick box adds gift wrap and a handwritten note to any toy, charged as one clear fee. Bundles list what is in the box, what the toys cost on their own and what you save.

A Playnest bundle product listing its toys, their prices and the saving

Built for editing

Every demo page is built in Elementor with the DEV3 Theme Toolkit widgets (product grid, category showcase, counters, FAQ), and 24 block patterns cover the same sections in the block editor. The demo has 40 fictional products; photos are free-licence and show no children's faces.

Editing the Playnest photo hero in Elementor

Frequently asked questions

The complete source code (version 1.0.0) as a download from your account, with the setup and usage guides shown on this page. It is free: sign in to download it.

Buying guides: 3D and motion WordPress themes for Elementor and WooCommerce

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