Alpha and Omega – Movie Review

Posted on September 25th, 2010 by toymaven

Hey, kiddies! Where can you find a pair of fun-loving, poorly animated and misunderstood WOLVES? Where is there a whole host of inappropriate sexual innuendos and barely controlled violence? In your local movie theaters (but hopefully not for long).

Yes, I’m reviving this long-dead blog based on a thoroughly horrible experience I had at the movies this weekend with my children, now 6 and 9. We went to see Alpha and Omega.

I know what you’re thinking. It’s a kids movie about wolves that’s in 3D. The premise is fundamentally flawed. I mean, if the wolves looked remotely realistic than it would be too terrifying for children, right? I knew that and i was prepared to suspend disbelief. I really was.

I really, really was.

Here’s the plot in a nutshell: The main character whose name is forgettable (I forgot it) is an Omega wolf who digs an Alpha wolf-girl who is in line for the throne, or whatever doubles as a throne in wolf-ville. They were friends as children but now Alpha-chick is all grown up and she’s forbidden to mate with an Omega. Oh, and in case you’re worried that the term “mate” might crop up – don’t fret. They conveniently substitute this word for “howl” – so the two main characters aren’t allowed to howl together. And, yes, I cracked up hysterically at this bad metaphor. Through unfortunate circumstances, Alpha and Omega are relocated to a different forest and must find their way back to their main pack before all holy hell breaks lose between two separate wolf packs (Alpha is engaged to marry another Alpha wolf from a rival pack).

This movie is so cookie cutter, it takes almost no effort at all for me to list ten other (better) movies and/or stories that were cobbled together to create this hot mess: Aladdin, Lady & the Tramp, Beauty & the Beast, The Lion King, A Bug’s Life (it’s Flick!), Romeo & Juliet (I swear there was a moment at the end when I thought both characters were going to die in a moment of ultimate sacrifice and I nearly threw up), Happy Feet (particularly when the wolves howl together in unintentionally hilarious “song”), West Side Story, Bolt, Madagascar, The Wild and Spirit (those last four represent the epic journey to return home). I’m pretty sure that was more than 10..

This is thinly veiled plagiarism and soulless character production at its best, folks! It wasn’t even funny, except for the scenes where the wolves howl together and that was only funny because it was supremely disturbing (it was nervous laughter). Then there were the scenes where the mother wolf (mother of the Alpha chick) said unexpectedly vicious things which were supposed to be funny (because she was a motherly cute and sweet looking character.)  She literally said something like, “I’m going to rip your eyes out and stuff them down your neck so you can see me tear your throat out.” And, actually, these comments from mom were the most authentically real moments in the movie because, after all, they’re WOLVES.

Still, I’m sure I’m not the only parent who shifted nervously in my seat and wondered how I was going to erase that image from my 6-year-old’s brain before it got lodged in there forever, contributing to what must be a host of disturbing junk that she’ll have to eventually work out with her therapist.

And, again, this movie is in 3D, only not in the theater where we went. There were many pointless scenes which were obviously created to capitalize on the 3D effect, which only ended up dragging the movie on longer than it needed to go. I counted at least 4 scenes where the wolves rode down a mountain or hillside in the hollow of a tree. This was done purely to show trees rushing towards the camera (I suppose). But come on, it gets OLD after the first two minutes.

Don’t go. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, DON’T GO!

Tomorrow I’ve promised to take the girls to see Legend of the Guardian. Help…me…

| Category Toy Box Musings

Are virtual worlds for kids the Joe Camel of social media?

Posted on February 12th, 2010 by toymaven

I figured I should try to talk about toy trends on this blog. I mean, Toy Graveyard can be so much more than me bitching and moaning about various toys my children own. As such, and in the interest of trying to get myself into next year’s Toy Fair (as if my incessant shopping isn’t a key reason Mattel is in business), here goes my first major attempt at reporting on a hot new toy trend.

So, online virtual worlds for kids are big. Huge, even. This probably isn’t news to those of you who have to chase your children away from Webkinz.com or Club Penguin.

I had a little fun looking up some of the stats involved with virtual worlds aimed at kids (I’m an online marketer in my other life). Not surprisingly, they have tremendous reach which grows larger each year. I found a rather alarming FTC report that revealed explicit and/or violent content was found on 19 of 27 virtual worlds aimed at children (mainly within chat and bulletin board sections of the sites). I know to keep my kids out of the chat and bulletin board features, but the 5-year-old can’t read yet. What happens when kids get a little older and more autonomous online?

The report also shed some light on the sheer size of the online virtual (kids) world industry.

**There may be as many as 200 youth-oriented live, planned, or beta virtual worlds (with these numbers expected to grow)

**There were an estimated 579 million virtual world accounts (globally) in the second quarter of 2009

**Nearly 60% of accounts are for users aged 10-15

**About 20% of users were aged 5-10

**About 15% of users were aged 15-25

**Research by eMarketer demonstrated that approximately 8 million U.S. children aged 3-17 visited virtual worlds on a regular basis in 2008

**The number of youth participants in online virtual worlds is projected to grow to over 15 million by 2013, with the most significant growth among the pre-teen (ages 3-11) segment of users.

The FTC seems to have gotten most of its stats from a site called Virtual World News. Fascinating stuff.

So, what does this mean for our kids? I’m not sure. My kids don’t go online much at this point. They’re 8 and 5. My older daughter can now navigate this new online frontier without much help from me, but she doesn’t have her own computer so that helps keep her offline.

She did get involved with Webkinz a couple of years ago and, with lots of help from me, registered many new Webkinz and spent time playing on the site. She did a bit of high-level social networking too (she sent and received pre-written messages to her cousins). We didn’t allow her to go into the free chat area and probably instilled a horrible fear of strangers in her at that point in time (e.g., “sometimes creepy grown ups hang out in those chat rooms and they want to take you away.”) Yep, great parenting skills, I know.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t recognize how much time and money and sheer talent has gone into the creation of the top online virtual worlds for kids. Many of them are free, or cost a minimal amount of money (e.g., one just needs to purchase a toy to gain entry). But I don’t know. I’m a worrier. I mean, stories of social networking addiction abound these days and I can’t help but wonder if these online worlds are just more high-tech versions of pseudo-creative toys.

Let’s face it, a child with a stuffed horse and a Barbie can invent amazing things when left alone with their imagination. On the other hand, tethering my child’s imagination to an interactive world sort of limits the possibility of Barbie turning the horse into a fire-breathing dolphin while she goes off to seek assistance from Greek gods or long-dead Vikings. I mean, I’m just saying.

So, yeah, I have all sorts of reservations ranging from stunted imaginations, to stranger danger, to online bullying to social network addiction.  For now I have no problem keeping my kids away from these cyber temptations, but in a few years I’ll have to reassess the situation because I’m pretty sure I’ll be hearing things like, “everyone else in the class is doing it!” Life was so much easier when all parents had to worry about was Lite Brite and Barbie!

One final reservation and then I swear I’ll be done. All these sites seem so animated and inviting (hello Joe Camel!) I think it may be impossible to keep the kids from logging on. I visited a few today which I refuse to list or link to, and they all looked completely AWESOME. It just seems like all these companies are dangling cyber candy in front of impressionable children. At the end of the day, are we teaching our kids to be happy little office drones? Is this training for a life of cubicle drudgery? I suddenly have the urge to sign my children up for bungee jumping and outdoor survival camp. I mean, someone in this house needs to learn how to survive without a flat screen in front of them, right???

Tags: Toy Industry Trends | Category Toy Box Musings, Toy Industry Trends

The LEGO Dream Team

Posted on January 28th, 2010 by toymaven

Due to an unforeseen snow day, five LEGO superstars came together on our as-yet-to-be-cleaned-post-breakfast dining room table. Their mission? Seek out and destroy all “cute” toys.

Okay, so I know I declared the LEGO people set a Christmas toy fail just yesterday, but you’ve gotta believe me that I have no idea how many of the above figures came from that particular set. I’m pretty sure at least two of the aliens are from a different set – this one in fact…

LEGO Space Police Gold Heist

This set is, by the way, just as awesome as it looks. The picture nowhere near does it justice. I’ve linked to it on Amazon.com and it’s only $20.00 (I think we paid around $30 at Toys R Us). Ana chose this set herself with her Christmas money and just last week put it together. Well, in all honesty, my husband put the ship together. Good thing he’s a woodworker because you definitely need a firm grasp on spacial reasoning for this one (which I do not have). So, we do love LEGO, see? LEGO, don’t be mad at me for declaring that one toy a Christmas fail…it’s just that the other sets sort of outshone it. I mean, look at this one! It comes with tiny lego handcuffs for the bad guy alien space villain! Designing LEGO sets has to be like the best job ever!

| Category Play Time, Super Cool Toys

Let’s talk Christmas presents

Posted on January 27th, 2010 by toymaven

I know it’s January and we all just want to put the pain and stress of Christmas shopping behind us, but I got this bright idea to take inventory of all the stuff I got my kids and really evaluate what they’re playing with. Then I thought how exhausting it would be to go through that in ONE post, so I’ve decided to focus on one big win from 2010 and, one big loss. Then I promise I’m done with Christmas. Birthdays are coming in up in April and May anyway.

THE BIG WIN – Only Hearts Club Dolls

Only Hearts Club dolls are not new to my house – I bought each girl one of these dolls a couple of years ago hoping to pull the younger one away from the tantalizing temptation of Barbie. Alas, it didn’t work. Barbie’s charms are far too great, at least where Emily is concerned. Ana, however, is a different story. Ana is the child who loves to climb trees and dress up as Star Wars characters for Halloween. She’s loved stuffed animals since the tender age of one. In fact, I think we have more stuffed animals in our house than any other item, except perhaps my husband’s drum equipment.

So when Ana started playing Barbies with Emily (much to my intense shock),  she had only a grudging acceptance of the joys of pretend doll play. She did it for the greater good because she wanted to play with her sister and couldn’t tear her away from Barbie. It is my belief that Ana actually began to enjoy playing with Barbie, though she would not admit this to herself or to me. She also  couldn’t bring herself to ask me for a Barbie for Christmas, but when I suggested another Only Hearts Club doll (they come with their very own tiny animal), she was enthusiastic.

I pushed doubt aside and bought Ana and Emily each an Only Hearts Club doll for Christmas – I think it was the first toy I bought. The dolls are manufactured by OHC Group which seems to be an independent toy company (not affiliated with some of the bigger companies like Mattel). They sell the dolls at Target, which is where we stumbled across our first one. I was unable to locate them at our Toys R Us and the ones I bought the girls came from small independent toy retailers via Amazon.com.

These dolls are very affordable, ranging in price from about $14 – $20 and they’re made very well. The clothes are stunningly detailed. So much so that I really wish they made one of the little camouflage print hoodies in my size as it’s simply adorable. The best part? Ana loves the doll (I got her one named “Anna Sophia”) and she plays with it a lot. Emily still gravitates to Barbie, but she likes hers too. So, I’d say these were both wins. My one complaint is that the dolls are hard to dress, particularly for Emily (who is 5). It’s hard to pull the tiny little clothes over the cloth body, particularly jacket and shirt sleeves. Also, the feet aren’t really feet -they’re sort of fabric nubs and you kind of have to jam the nubs into the doll’s shoes in a way that’s borderline violent. Or that just may be how I handled it…

THE BIG LOSS – LEGO people set

Sometimes a great toy idea doesn’t materialize into a successful gift, and that was the case with the LEGO people set I ordered from LEGO.com and gave to both my girls with instructions to share. There were enough LEGO people in the set for both of them (31 to be exact). I know what you’re thinking. They fought over the set and it ended in tears, but actually, that wasn’t the case.

What actually happened was that all 31 characters and their tiny accessories got absorbed into our large LEGO bin and the impact of the 31 new LEGO characters was very minimal, when looking at the larger toy-related picture. I thought the girls would play with the LEGO people for hours, but in truth they barely played with them at all – even from day one.

Part of the problem was that Ana got about three other LEGO sets for Christmas from various sources, Santa included, and each set came with its own characters. Emily, as it turns out, isn’t all that interested in LEGOs. So, this was sort of a Christmas toy fail, mainly because it got lost in the shuffle and not because it’s not an awesome set – which it is! It cost about $50.00 from LEGO.com. That’s kind of a high price tag for a toy that evaporated once we put all the people together and removed it from the box.

| Category Christmas Unwrapped, Toy Box Musings

Toys That Bite

Posted on January 22nd, 2010 by toymaven

This post is dedicated to the toys that pack a bit of a sting to them. You know the ones – those hard, plastic beasties that poke at tender little knees (LEGO’s anyone?), the mechanized monstrosities with moving parts that pull and pinch and the poorly designed finger eater uppers. Ah yes. Good times.

Barbie’s Horse is Mean

This delectable Barbie horse looks sweet, innocent and relatively safe, right? Wrongo! The front legs are hinged so it can be posed, and my 5-year-old got her fingers pinched enough that she stopped playing with it shortly after getting it for Christmas last year. Maybe this year’s model will come with its very own electric shock system built into the lovely posable legs. That’ll show those little girls!

Zoob

I’m guilty of purchasing Zoob for Ana when she was 6 (two Christmas’s ago) based solely on the cool packaging. I applied no common sense or past experience to this purchase at all. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that the toy was frustrating to her and came with the added bonus of being extremely pinchy.

At the time I thought that Zoob was probably good for older kids (it’s recommended for 6-10 years) and/or kids that love to build stuff. II figured this was just a classic example of buying a toy that’s not age appropriate and getting stuck with nothing but a bin full of colorful plastic pieces. I still think it looks cool, but it hasn’t come out of that nifty bin in two years. Apparently children have a long memory when it comes to things that cause them physical pain. Go figure.

Barbie Fashionista

Gosh, look, it’s another Barbie product that causes physical pain. The Barbie Fashionista dolls have hinged legs and arms that are perfect for posing. Perfect, that is, until the 5-year-old gets that tender part of her hand (you know, the area between thumb and index finger) caught in Barbie’s bone-crushing hard vinyl joints.

| Category Run Away, Toys That Bite

Unicorns have rules too

Posted on January 19th, 2010 by toymaven

As per yesterday’s post, my 5-year-old got a new toy unicorn yesterday and is very excited about it. She slept with it last night and when I woke her up for school, informed me that unicorn horns can shock people.

Me: Oh, really, sweetie, where did you hear that?

Emily: Ana (her sister) told me

Me: What else did she tell you about unicorns?

Emily: A unicorn needs to charge its power at night or it will die

Me: maybe it won’t die – maybe it’ll just sleep until it can charge its power

Emily: no, it will die

Me: ok…

Let me break in here to say that my older daughter, Ana, who is now 8 – was infatuated with Unicorns between the ages of 5 and 6. Here’s a snapshot of her partial collection:

The big white unicorn was $45 at F.A.O. Schwartz – it’s a Melissa & Doug Unicorn and was truly the love of Ana’s life for about a year. So, I approached Ana to see what sort of rules she’d come up with for unicorns. I know you want to know.

1. Unicorns can’t get their horns wet. I’m not clear on what happens if the horns get wet, when I asked what they do when it rains Ana shrugged and said they flew home

2. Unicorns can fly. How can they fly? Because of the horn! (makes perfect sense if you’re 5)

3. Unicorns were originally born from horses (p.s. don’t use this as a learning experience to introduce your child to the concept of “evolution” -  trust me on this)

4. Unicorns recharge their power via a special stone which is located somewhere in a forest

5. Unicorn horns can shock you (as stated above)

I’m sure there are more rules, but the bus came and carried the children away at this point. I’ve forgotten half the rules now. I hope I don’t get stung by a unicorn for my forgetfulness.

| Category Toy Box Musings

The making of Barbie

Posted on January 18th, 2010 by toymaven

What’s better than seeing Barbie’s head on the end of a stick?

Oh this isn’t a riddle, IT’S BARBIE’S WORST NIGHTMARE! Seriously, though, I stumbled upon the coolest photo collage of The Making of Barbie, on a site called designboom which I’ve now added to my bookmarks.

I’ve been on a quest to find a video showing Barbie (or any doll, really) being made in a factory setting. Emily (my 5-year-old and lover of dolls) keeps asking me how “they” make doll hair. I can only assume by “they” she means the great and all-knowing toy makers in the magical land of brightly-colored-object-ville that exists in her head.

Maybe I don’t want to show her the above linked-to photo collage (though I HIGHLY recommend you click through all the photos because it’s just so completely fascinating). Will it ruin the magic for her if she sees Barbie’s face stripped of make up or with head(s) perched at the top of a tiny metal spike?

But as fascinating as they are,  the pictures in this photo montage of Barbie don’t really reveal the mechanical engineering that must go into mass producing Barbie dolls. She still looks lovely in these pictures, even with her hair being stitched on by a mechanical arm. I really NEED to see a behind-the-scenes look at how these dolls are created. If only to answer Emily’s incessant questions about the origin of doll hair.

| Category Toy Box Musings

Bernard loves unicorn with some fava beans a nice Chianti

Posted on January 18th, 2010 by toymaven

Hello, friends. Please meet our two newest toy acquisitions, fresh from a trip to Barnes & Noble this morning. It sort of looks like Bernard (the Wild Things monster) wants to eat Sophia (the Unicorn) for lunch, no? Oh pretend play, how I love thee so.

Now before you start clucking your tongue and shaking your head at my weakness, and propensity to give into my children’s every desire, please understand the facts here.

1) We all have the day off because of the holiday
2) I desperately wanted to go to the gym which has a daycare center that the girls really really hate
3) It’s possible I bribed said girls with a trip to Panera after my workout (the low fat chicken noodle soup is only 3 Weight Watchers points!)
4) Barnes & Noble is in the same shopping plaza as Panera and since they were home from school I said they could each pick out a work book or coloring book AND THAT WAS IT
5) They spent their allowances on the above toys. I swear to you they did.
6) The Wild Things monster was on sale for 75% off of $20.00, so Ana got it for a mere $5.00

So you see, I ended up spending $30, $13 of which the girls paid me back with their allowance money. Ana’s work book (a 3rd grade math book) was about $8.00 and Emily picked out two coloring books for $4.00 each. She got a third coloring book free! FREE, I SAY!

But getting back to the above animals…aren’t they so cute?? I love the stuffed animals at Barnes & Noble even though I kind of resent their ubiquitous presence next to the books. I’ve denied many a request for a stuffed horse or dragon during a routine trip to Barnes & Noble to pick out a book. Over the last year or so, I’ve actually avoided the store altogether because, frankly, I’m sick of navigating the stuffed animal alley of desire to try and get my children some reading material (our town library has a pathetically small selectionof books). That said, I have to admit that the stuffed animals themselves are actually very cute. Most (or maybe all) of them are made by Douglas Toys and they’re the sort of super soft plush that kids love to sleep with and hold. Emily’s unicorn was $8.00. She still has no concept of the value of money, of course, but she was overjoyed when I said she could afford it.

| Category New Toys

Webkinz, not your mother’s stuffed animal

Posted on January 14th, 2010 by toymaven

I’m trying to remember when the first Webkinz entered our home. Let’s see…I think it was Valentine’s Day 2007. I’d read about Webkinz online and thought – now, that’s a great idea for a Valentine’s Day gift for my kids. Yes, I buy them both treats for Valentine’s Day because I have a shopping problem. Please see my Target-related post for more information on that.

Here’s the premise re: Webkinz (in case you haven’t heard). Webkinz are stuffed animals manufactured by Ganz. Each one comes with a code which is securely attached to the animal via razor wire and a spring-loaded buzzer which gives you a shock unless you have the proper key to unlock it. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating, but the tags are VERY securely attached to the animals because the code that comes with them unlocks an online virtual world where each pet you buy comes to life. You need to create an online account at www.webkinz.com and, using the code that came with the animal, “adopt” your Webkinz. My daughter Ana particularly loves this process because she gets to name the animal and print an adoption certificate. We have a folder of all her Webkinz adoption certificates going back to 2007.

Once you’re all registered, the online world of Webkinz is accessible. The Webkinz code unlocks a “virtual” version of the doll (e.g., the above llama has an online alter ego llama) which kids can move around on the screen. The site contains a bunch of games and activities that are appropriate for most kids with basic computer skills. Being able to read also helps. The Webkinz site also uses a virtual money system which enables kids to buy various items from the virtual Webkinz store. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I remember when Ana was about 6 she blew through her money in about 10 minutes by buying things like bedroom sets and a grand piano for her pet. You can also add rooms to the account (each animal starts off with one virtual room). As in the real world, it’s very expensive to add a room to one’s virtual house.

Kids can earn more Webkinz money by performing certain tasks within the site such as playing games, taking quizzes or performing virtual work (I kid you not). The other way to get more virtual money is, you guessed it, by buying more Webkinz which they then adopt within their existing account. The first Webkinz is worth 2000 “KinzCash”, the 2nd – 10th is worth 2500 each and after the 11th Webkinz they’re worth 3500 each.

The plush toys themselves range in price from $10.00 to as high as $20.00. There are small versions of Webkinz which are called “lil Kinz” and these are usually in the $10.00 range. I like them for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that they’re very well made. They also come in an amazing variety of real and fantasy animals including unicorns, dragons and I think Ana even has a DoDo bird. They’re the perfect size for playing with and collecting (this is almost unfortunate in our case, because we have so very many of them). Ganz has brilliantly marketed these things – they come out with new versions every month, which makes for a very wide variety of animals. You can get them just about anywhere, so shop around for the best price (they seem to be the most expensive at Justice, but if you have a 40% off coupon then you can get them for a great price there). When I first started buying Webkinz, there was only one store in the area that had them and they were almost always sold out. In fact, half the fun of Webkinz (in my opinion) was hunting them down. Now the thrill of the hunt is gone, but we still buy them occasionally if they come out with a really cool one (e.g., the llama, above!)

So what’s my final recommendation? Honestly, I really like Webkinz, though I don’t necessarily like the online world but then my kids really don’t go online much at this point. We probably have about fifty Webkinz in our house, most of them owned by my 8-year-old daughter, Ana, who loves stuffed animals. We’ve gotten these as gifts, (for other people) but I don’t recommend it unless you know the child you’re buying for doesn’t have the Webkinz already since you can’t return them (because of the issue with the code). Still, they make great gifts (for your own kids) for stockings, Easter baskets, Valentine’s Day, etc., and are the perfect “allowance toy.” That is, they’re not that expensive so kids can easily save their own money to buy them.

| Category Toy Box Musings

Printies Revisited

Posted on January 11th, 2010 by toymaven

I posted my first review of Printies the week after Christmas, so I  won’t bore you with a list of my reservations (again). There were also some things I liked about the product such as the fact that my printer handled the fabric sheets without a problem and the Printies were centered without me having to align everything.

Since the week after Christmas involved a cornucopia of new toys,  I didn’t really have the time to fully evaluate the product. I also didn’t give it the 5-year-old test (my 8-year-old made just one stuffed animal). I was, frankly, afraid to get into it with Emily (the 5-year-old) since she tends to become very frustrated if she’s thwarted by things like software or poorly made toys.

But yesterday, after Emily begged me for the 5th time to make her own stuffed animal, I broke out the Printies once again and decided to make good on my promise to help her make one. It was around 10:00 a.m. when I began the process. TWO HOURS LATER, we had two more Printies of questionable quality. I’ve taken a picture because words can’t really capture this:

The animal on the left is supposed to be a cat, by the way. That’s the one Emily did with a lot of help from me and older sister Ana, who is 8 and can (thankfully) read on screen instructions. I can’t emphasize this enough…THE FIVE YEAR OLD HAD A LOT OF HELP.

Ana made the one on the right and thought it would be fun if she added her face to her creation. It turned out to be very frustrating for both of us, since I had to find a picture, resize it properly, and upload it to Printies before she could play with it. The Printies interface which, per my previous post, is horrible, uses the same command for stretching and rotating an image. Let me make a polite suggestion to the folks at Printies – for the next iteration of this thing – MAKE IT TWO DIFFERENT COMMANDS. It’s very frustrating for an 8-year-old when she keeps rotating her own face and all she wants to do is stretch it, or vice versa.

So, both these things printed fine, albeit a little faded but we’ll blame this on my printer settings rather than Printies. Then it came time to finish them off. Emily had fun stuffing hers for about 10 minutes then got tired of it and so I finished it for her. No matter how much I stuffed, the neck part of the dog still buckled inward as you can see in the photo. This would be no big deal to most reasonable people, but Emily is 5 so is completely unreasonable.

Then there’s the little matter of attaching the feet. Emily joyfully chose her doll’s feet and I secured the feet to the doll and placed it on a table where it promptly fell over. I then spent 10-15 minutes trying to secure the feet to the doll in such a way that it wouldn’t fall over (again, trying to comply with Emily’s completely unreasonable request). I ended up putting more stuffing in it and finally succeeding. Emily then joyfully placed the stickers on the shoes and we were done. Please reread the above paragraph and replace “Emily” with “Ana” and you will have a good idea of how I spent my Sunday morning.

I want to mention that it’s very hard to be truly creative with the toy, particularly for younger kids. The reason Emily’s doll looks so good is she pretty much stuck with the templates that came with the software, rather than “drawing” or “painting” using the freehand drawing tools. When she tried to draw in the Printies software, she scribbled all over the design and practically turned purple with frustration. At one point I thought the top of her head was going to shoot off. Thank GOD for the “undo” button – one of the few usable tools in the software (don’t get me started on how I accidentally undid half of Ana’s work).

One other thing – apparently Printies are like Gremlins in that you can’t get them wet. If you look closely at the cat/dog, above, you’ll see a smudge on its left side above the paw which I’m assuming happened because it got some water on it. Stuffed animal colors shouldn’t run. It’s just sad and wrong. I’m revising my originally tentative suggestion to purchase a $20 set and try it out.

I personally wouldn’t recommend the product, but I’m not YOUR mother so do what you want. I know this got some sort of best toy award and I can only speak for my experience. There aren’t enough Sunday mornings in my life to waste them on poorly designed pseudo-creative toys.

| Category Ends in Tears, Pseudo-Creative Toys