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| toy shopping as I imagined it, fun! |
A little someones 1st birthday is coming up soon, so I'm on the lookout for presents.
With Target's toy sale advertising bombarding us every time we turn on the TV or open the letterbox, I thought I might as well have a look in...
Quelle Horreur!! It was aisle after aisle of plastic fronted boxes stocked sky high and a traffic jam of prams, tantrums and stressed out parents! To put it bluntly, it was bloody awful!!
And it was pretty much the same uninspiring story at the other big three (retailers), minus the queues...
I thought toy shopping was going to be fun??!!
Then we made a trip to our old friend IKEA.. I know what you're thinking, IKEA can (especially on a weekend) way out-strip all of those big stores in the hectic shopping experience stakes...
But the toy department in IKEA is fun!!
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An IKEA kids classic |
It's full of kids (little & big) testing it all out! Crawling through tunnels; swinging on cool modernist looking swings; playing house with cuter than cute mini kitchens etc, generally having a ball...
Sure they do sell some odd things at times and it's all probably just as mass produced as the stuff in the plastic fronted boxes.., but for me (and maybe it's that Swedish sensibility) their toys seem to have more integrity, they evoke that feeling of surprise and delight that old fashioned or handmade toys do.
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| roll up, roll up... |
Anyway it worked for me and hence I came away with some fresh ideas and a bunch of great stuff including this irresistible little tent!!
Thanks IKEA, for making shopping for toys what it ought to be... Fun!!
I'm with you. I hate plastic toys (on the whole. There's the odd-one I'll buy). But I give my kids quality rather than quantity. I feel a bit shallow because I'm a toy snob, but I can guarantee my girls will never own Barbie and licensed products have a limited shelf life ie I throw them as soon as I can.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest turns two soon, and all she's getting for her birthday is an Ikea play kitchen.
Your littley is in for a treat! Those kitchens look so fun!! If only they came in big kid size. Oh wait... :)
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you...IKEA has so much cute stuff for imaginative play. When my kids were little they loved going to IKEA, but we could never kids them out of the kid space. We loved their tunnels, tents and adorable little dishes. Even to this day, my daughter is 16 and we always have to take a spin through the kids stuff at IKEA. And on top of having cute stuff, they always have great idea for fun and functional ways to store it all in a small space.
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