Your 10 best toy purchases - and your 10 that were a waste of money

[AnyDream]

BEST:
Large coloured scarves & op shop dress ups (these have been played with more often and for longer than any other toy in the house)
Belville theme Lego - especially the fairytale sets
All things duplo/lego
Good quality textas, pencils, paints etc and paper
Playdough toys - especially the foodie ones
Wooden toy kitchen, ikea pots & pans, and felt food.
Jar of large multicoloured buttons
Scooter
musical instruments (tabla, tone bells, xylophone, harmonica, etc - but steer clear of the recorders/whistles if you value your sanity)
Magnadoodle
Plastic camping set in a backpack (pretend camp stove, compass, shovel, torch, etc) - this still gets played with
Doctor's bag (op shop handbag with toy doctor set inside)
Small (real) tea cups and saucers
Boxed games: UNO!!! plus also cluedo, jenga, snap cards, connect-4, battleship


WORST
Those books with the effing jigsaw pages! I hate them with a passion
Wooden doll-house family and furniture
The $2 shop craft packs that consist of ****ty textas, unshiny glitter that gets spilt in the carpet, and coloured feathers that turn up randomly around the house for the next 10 years
Most tv/movie merchandise toys (the exception was the disney princess doll with black undies that did karate kicks and arm chops!)
pretend cleaning tools
Dolls that were the fad of the moment
Beanie kids
Risk: the game to play if you want your family to hate each other.

[peanutter]

BEST:
Large coloured scarves & op shop dress ups (these have been played with more often and for longer than any other toy in the house)

Best. Idea. Ever.

Now I know what DS1 is getting to go with his birthday gift

And I have an old little suitcase they can live in

[wysiwyg]

BEST:
Large coloured scarves & op shop dress ups (these have been played with more often and for longer than any other toy in the house)
Belville theme Lego - especially the fairytale sets
All things duplo/lego
Good quality textas, pencils, paints etc and paper
Playdough toys - especially the foodie ones
Wooden toy kitchen, ikea pots & pans, and felt food.
Jar of large multicoloured buttons
Scooter
musical instruments (tabla, tone bells, xylophone, harmonica, etc - but steer clear of the recorders/whistles if you value your sanity)
Magnadoodle
Plastic camping set in a backpack (pretend camp stove, compass, shovel, torch, etc) - this still gets played with
Doctor's bag (op shop handbag with toy doctor set inside)
Small (real) tea cups and saucers
Boxed games: UNO!!! plus also cluedo, jenga, snap cards, connect-4, battleship


WORST
Those books with the effing jigsaw pages! I hate them with a passion
Wooden doll-house family and furniture
The $2 shop craft packs that consist of ****ty textas, unshiny glitter that gets spilt in the carpet, and coloured feathers that turn up randomly around the house for the next 10 years
Most tv/movie merchandise toys (the exception was the disney princess doll with black undies that did karate kicks and arm chops!)
pretend cleaning tools
Dolls that were the fad of the moment
Beanie kids
Risk: the game to play if you want your family to hate each other.

Ohhh I love RISK - I can still remember the smell of my RISK game - I think it has changed over the years but mine was before they changed to figures and were just little plastic three pronged things - and they had a very distinctive smell.

I am with you on books with puzzle pages though - dumbest invention ever.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Most tv/movie merchandise toys (the exception was the disney princess doll with black undies that did karate kicks and arm chops)

Fairly sure this is Xena, not a disney one. Love Xena. But not being gifted the dolls age 20. (Still boxed, need to check ebay...)

[AnyDream]

Fairly sure this is Xena, not a disney one. Love Xena. But not being gifted the dolls age 20. (Still boxed, need to check ebay...)

No, it was one of the princesses out of the Shrek movie where (SPOILER ALERT) the princesses kick butt.