Over the past few months Baby Girl has fallen in love with the “surprise reveal” videos on YouTube. Most adults are baffled that their child is entertained by watching it, but to her, it is fascinating to see what will they open next! A common toys that is featured in these videos is a toy called Shopkins. Shopkins arrive in a mini shopping basket with two Shopkins figures in each. There is no way to tell what is inside each basket as the figures are individually wrapped and placed in the baskets at random.
I wanted Baby Girl to enjoy each basket she received so she has been given one or two randomly throughout the week. Last night she fell on our stairs and we needed a quick way to distract her while my husband ran to the pharmacy to buy bandages and antibiotic ointment. The only thing that worked was giving her three baskets to open. After he returned and she was all bandaged up, she started searching the house for more baskets, taking my hand saying “Where’s more Shopkins?”.
In all, Baby Girl received ten season 2 mini shopping baskets to open this week with twenty Shopkins total. The new series has 140 new characters and four new themes, including Baby Bits and Shoes to Choose, featuring new flocked textures, details and surprises.
I was amazed at the care my daughter placed into opening each basket and each figure package. Once she opened the individually packaged toy, she searched and compared them on her shopping list (included in the basket). The collectible toys come in several shopping categories and collectible statuses.
Shopkins Categories: Fruit & Veg, Homewares, Bakery, Sweet Treats, Pantry, Cleaning & Laundry, Shoes, Baby Limited Edition.
Collection Statuses: common, rare, ultra rare, and special edition.
Baby Girl found several common, rare, and ultra rare Shopkins in her baskets with few duplicates. Really, she doesn’t care about their collectible status, she’s only two, but the big kids are secretly in on her collection, checking to see if she “got any good ones”.
Shopkins are recommended for age five to fifteen. Baby Girl is only two but she is past the “toys to mouth” stage and understands that these are toys not food. She takes special care of them as they go wherever she goes. She sleeps with them next to her bed at night and they are the first thing she asks for when she wakes up each morning. She truly loves these little toys!
Special little Shopkins fans may also enjoying playing with the Shopkins Small Mart. The small mart is a cute way to play with the Shopkins figures in a store setting. You can place figure toys on the shelf, in the shopping cart, and even run them through the register – just like a real store! My favorite feature is the delivery chute, wouldn’t shopping be more fun with one of those to keep little ones entertained? Baby Girl says “I play wit’ th-AT ever day!”
Shopkins Small Mart was recently nominated for a Toy of the Year award by the Toy Industry Association. Visit the Toy Industry Association’s Voting Page to place your vote for Toy of the Year. Voting closes on January 12th; all winners will be notified in February 2015.
If you have a little girl like mine who is careful, calm, and sweet by nature – she may very well love Shopkins as much as Baby Girl does. Shopkins are on our 2014 Holiday Gift Guide as my daughter’s favorite Christmas gift. Shopkins are available at Amazon.com and in toy stores all over. Please visit Shopkins World for more information.