My Life As Get Well Play Set and Art Supply Play Set

Today at Wal-Mart I picked up a couple of sets. I knew as soon as I saw pictures of the Get Well Play Set that I wanted it, and I've learned that when I really love a set, it's better to snag it while it's available. I've seen sets go away while I waffled over whether to buy them or not.

At first I didn't think the set was there. There were a lot of very cute new sets and in the middle of all that it took a few minutes of searching. I also ran into the Art Supply Play Set, and picked that one up.

First: the Art Supply Play Set, my impulse buy. It comes in this adorable little plastic tote and includes all sorts of things.

A plastic "canvas" with a painting on it, some tiny sketches, and a sketchpad. That sketchpad was my deciding factor. It is filled with blak pages.
There's also an artist's palette, paint tubes, three paint brushes (with different brush sizes and shapes!), glue, glitter, colored pencils, markers, and scissors.

The scissors open and close, and THE MARKER CAPS ARE REMOVABLE. I actually squealed when I realized.
Those are going to be very easy for youngsters to lose. Lots of small parts in this set. I love that it all comes with its own convenient tote, so I can keep them all together easily.

The drawing implements have loops, so the dolls can hold them. All in all, a gorgeous little set. Wal-Mart is stepping up their game - and has been for a while now. I was just in awe going through the aisle seeing the new sets and new twists on old sets (like a new vending machine with different packages inside).

Now: the Get Well set. First, there's a little dining tray. The legs fold out.

There's a tissue box, a bowl of soup with a plate and spoon, an ice pack, a thermometer, a hot water bottle, and TEA. The mug of tea, two lemon slices, two little teabags labeled green tea and herbal tea, and a bottle of honey.

The soup didn't really impress me (and to be honest I thought the plate was a piecrust at first, it just looks odd).

The tissue box is plastic. It actually opens and has one cloth tissue inside. The icepack can also be opened up and you can put things in if you like; if you have some pretend ice, you could insert it.

The hot water bottle is a single piece of solid hard red plastic. Here it is compared to Molly's water bottle.

The mug of tea is the same as the hot chocolate mug from one of the My Life As winter playsets. However, the drink is translucent.

The tea packets were one part that really impressed me. I'm used to seeing Wal-Mart sets where the paper pieces are just a flat piece of cardboard printed on one side only. But when I opened it up, I found that they were actual envelopes!

And of course, for the tea you have lemons and honey. The honey bear was my entire reason for buying this set. I mean it's all pretty cute but that bear sold me on it.
My bear actually has a black mark on the back of the head.

Size comparison: here's the dolls' honey bear with a honey container from my cabinet, along with a little mini one I saved from a while back.

Here's Molly feeling under the weather. At least she has some good food to help her feel better.

Well, except for the honey. That's in the kitchen with the other condiments. The dolls can start collecting stuff for a spice cabinet!

My Life As Desk and Chair

I’ve had my eye on this desk set at Wal-Mart. Here is the picture from their website. The model available at my local store had a somewhat different color scheme.

When I saw the set discounted on clearance, I snatched it up. My set has blue and salmon accents.

Everything is constructed from sturdy plastic. There is also a salmon-pink rug, not pictured here. The bulletin board in the middle of the desk is a cardboard backing which provides some nice colored contrast. I might eventually remove it but I like it for now.

It came with stickers, a cardboard calendar, and other things. I was somewhat disappointed in these. Sets from other lines such as Our Generation have included "real" journals with pages. Here, the journal here was just a folded piece of cardstock with lines on the inside. The fashion magazine, made of a folded piece of cardboard, didn't have anything on the inside. It would have made sense for the birthday card to be a similar folded piece, but that's just a flat piece of cardboard! I'm sorry - I've been spoiled by OG.

My family had some young guests the other day for a birthday party and they were very impressed by the lamp, which does light up. It turns off on its own after a few seconds.

The drawers and cabinets all open, which was lovely, and great for storage. The drawers can slide right out, and it can be a little tricky to slide them back in. My visitors had some trouble and had to ask me for help. 

The chair can spin around, but that's about all it does. The wheels do not move. It looks very short compared to the dolls, but it allows them to have their arms over the desk at a somewhat normal height. When I tried a taller chair, Larkin was looming over the desk.

My visitors also seemed to like the laptop. I was a little disappointed in the laptop at first. Although images showed it standing like a normal laptop, in real life it had no way to stay up unless you propped it against something. It would just lie flat like so. 

One of my visitors told me encouragingly that they could just lean it against the back of the desk to keep it open, but I still wasn't satisfied. I added two small dots of hot glue to support it, and was much happier with the results. It can now stand on its own.

Overall, I got this set mainly for the desk itself, the lamp and the laptop. The sheer amount of cardboard gives it a somewhat chintzy feel, but those are mainly for decoration. The plastic pieces are nice and overall I was pleased with this purchase. I'm looking forward to getting more stuff from the My Life As line - particularly one of those little shopping carts. Are those cute or what?