My Life As Mini Dolls from Walmart

I was looking around my studio the other day, trying to decide what to review next, and I realized that I have a lot of mini versions of 18-inch play dolls sitting around--some brand new, some that have been here for several months.  The exact same day that I had this realization, I went to Walmart to buy grass seed (our yard is a lifeless mud pit), swung through the toy section...and spotted two of the new My Life As mini dolls.  That's when it hit me that I should do a sequence of shorter reviews showcasing some of these newer minis--a mini series about mini dolls, if you will.

This mini series will include the newest Maru Mini Pals (on their way to me as I type!), a Kidz 'n' Cats mini doll, some of the newer Our Generation minis (and Lori dolls), maybe my mini (and full-sized!) American Girl Melody dolls...and of course the My Life As minis I just discovered.  In fact, I'll start things off with the My Life As minis because they feel really new and exciting to me right now.  Here's my favorite of the bunch:

My Life As a Baker mini doll ($9.88).

New My Life As Dolls from Walmart

What a week this has been!  I apologize for not being present in the comments section recently, but I have been reading and appreciating every comment--or at least every comment that isn't spam (did you guys see those crazy ones last week?  Whoa).  There have been a few minor changes here on the blog that I'd like to mention.  First, I had to shorten the format of my feed as part of a time-consuming battle against someone stealing my content.  What a drag.  However, on a positive note, I am on Twitter now (@TBP_emily).  So that's all good.

Anyway, last week I was working on a different review when I got an email from Nonna (of Mommy's Doll Club).  She told me about the new My Life As dolls at Walmart and asked if I had seen them.  I actually did see these newcomers during my Sparkle Girlz quest, but dismissed them pretty quickly because I wasn't crazy about the new faces at first.  Nonna bought one of the new girls (a redhead!) and made some neat observations, tempting me into purchasing my own doll for a closer look.  At the same store where I bought my doll, I found another exciting My Life As release that I will show off at the end of the review.

I never would have written this review without Nonna's tip, so I want to start the post by having her share some of what she found with her doll (My Life As a Party Planner, redhead), before I review the doll I chose (My Life As a School Girl, brunette).  Thank you so much for the inspiration, Nonna, and congratulations on your beautiful new blog!

New My Life As a School Girl (left) and older My Life As an Outdoorsy Girl (right).

More Minis! Part 1: The Funville Sparkle Girlz

I had so much fun reviewing the new Moxie Girlz Friends dolls and the Battat Our Generation minis, that I've stayed focused on smaller dolls for the last week or so--hunting around locally and online to see what else is out there in the 5-10 inch size range.  Locally, I visited Target, Walmart, Toys R Us and the Dollar Store to see what mini dolls are readily available here in my part of the world.  Online, I hunted down some older Battat mini dolls that I learned about while researching the new dolls.  In a two-part mini series, I'll show you my favorite dolls from this search: the Collector's Lane Kids 6-inch dolls by Battat (that'll be Part 2...), and today, the inexpensive line of 4-inch dolls from Walmart called Funville Sparkle Girlz.

There are a few different sizes of Sparkle Girlz.  There are 20-inch play dolls, 12-inch fashion dolls, and 4-inch toddlers.  I was interested in the toddlers for this review, but these smallest Sparkle Girlz are actually quite hard to find around here.  There are four Walmart stores in my immediate area, and I've visited all of them within the last five days.  All of these stores had plenty of the larger dolls, but most had only one kind of mini...or just empty cardboard display cases.  Since these dolls cost $2.47, it's no surprise that they are hard to keep in stock.  At the very last Walmart I visited, I finally found a representative variety of little Sparkle Girlz.

In this post I will show you four different dolls from this series and contrast them to the comparably-priced Moxie Girlz Friends dolls.

Funville Sparkle Girlz "Little Ballerina" mini doll.