Barbie iDesign Ultimate Stylist Cards and CD-ROM

My four year old loves this. She gets to dress up Barbie and redress all she wants with very little assistance from mom or dad. This is by far her favorite Christmas gift!

I got my daughter some of the packs of cards for this game a while back - they were fun to stack and look at the designs anyway, and they were inexpensive, so we started with those. They come with a plastic frame where you can display your designs. She played with them a LOT so that is when I started looking at this set. Santa brought one this year and we have had an absolute blast with it. I installed it first on my computer (2008 Windows XP) Christmas Day, then took it to my mom's to show her (2001 laptop) , and now it is installed on my daughter's (ancient, Windows 2000) PC. We had no problems with installation of the scanner, use of the cards (the old ones or the new ones) or the software.

This reminds me a lot of the fashion plates I had as a kid... so many cool things to make! And the scanning of the cards, which I imagined would be a little more difficult than it ended up being, is as easy as scanning your credit card at the checkout. I can't think of any other video game I have seen like this - a toy that can stand alone WITHOUT a computer but then you can scan them in and create things on the computer too.

My daughter just turned seven and is just wild about the games, and I have made about a zillion outfits myself. I highly recommend this set.

My only "downside" is that the cord for the scanner (usb) is not very long. If you are using it on an older PC without front USB ports you may find it is a stretch to set it where you can reach it easily. However, a USB extension cord would solve this problem if it comes up.

Very easy to set up with enough to do that it kept the attention of our 6 and 7 year old neices without a fight. It's very durable and will last a very long time.

When my daughter asked Santa for this toy I was a little skeptical. I couldn't figure out what it really did. But lo and behold did Santa deliver! This toy is a definite hit. My 6 year old loves Barbies, and uses the computer occassionally, so it was a good fit. She figured out the game quickly and easily. She loved the scanner, it was just like using a credit card! I enjoyed playing this game with her and so did her aunts, all in their 20s. If your little girl likes fashion, computers or Barbie, this is a must have!

This product is great. I love the fact that it comes with a binder to hold everything. It was a very easy set up as well. My daughter is really enjoying it.