When we visited the American Girl Store in Minneapolis last summer we were first introduced to the idea of what it was to have a personal shopper.  We didn't really fully utilize having one on that visit since we didn't know what it was all about yet but we did leave the store with a catalog and a brochure with a personal shopper's business card attached.  I kept it...hung it on the fridge and didn't give it a second thought.  Fast forward several months and it was Christmastime and I wanted to get something special for Zoey, something that she wouldn't have seen in the catalog or online and I thought hmmm...I think I'll call the Minneapolis store and see if they can ship me some store exclusives. They could!  I placed my order of "special" items (a mini Coconut dog, some exclusive doll pajamas and a swimsuit) and they were delivered to me super fast!  If I recall correctly it was only 2-3 days time (I'm in Wisconsin and the store I ordered from is in Minnesota).   Anyways, I was sold on the idea of having a personal shopper right then and there when it comes to ordering from American Girl.

Here are just a few other reasons why it's a special experience to shop with a personal shopper.  I just recently called and placed another order consisting of some items for Bitty Baby since they are having a special right now where things are 30% off for Bitty Baby...I did this before the free shipping special expired and was able to get both specials applied to my order.  My personal shopper at the Minneapolis store is Mary Halvorson.  I just love, love, love her!  She makes the shopping experience so special...just look at how the package arrived.

Beautiful, colorful, shaped sequins were all over the tissue paper and inside the box when we opened it up...

there was a handwritten (and hand stamped) card inside as well thanking me for my purchase.

Also included was some informative pamphlets about events and things going on at the American Girl stores.  Oh how I wish we lived closer so we could take advantage of attending some of these events!!

We were tickled to see that we got another mini doll sized shopping bag too!!  I had asked for one of these with my Christmas order as well so with the one we received while at the Minneapolis store (our first and only visit so far), the one from Christmas and now this one...we are so lucky to have three mini bags now for the dolls to shop!  Inside the bag was two American Girl pencils (sure to make math homework go a bit easier for Zoey I am sure!).

Also inside the mini bag was a gymnastics duffle bag which was one of McKenna's store exclusive items I believe...Zoey was so tickled to discover that since we have McKenna and she's actually the doll that she got to pick out on her own at the Minneapolis store last summer.  Also included were some American Girl star logo stickers.

After getting to the bottom of our box we discovered one last surprise...a full size Saige poster!  While we love it and love Saige, Zoey is thinking that she will be giving this poster to her friend Gracie since Gracie LOVES Saige to pieces as well as art and is hoping to get Saige for her birthday this coming summer.  Having a poster of her hanging in her bedroom just might tide her over until it's time to add her (possibly) to the family.

I will share some of our actual purchases in another post soon...I just wanted to share with you our experience using a personal shopper via the mail and over the phone.  We are so happy with this service and truly feel special doing so.

Thank you American Girl and a thank you especially to our personal shopper, Mary Halvorson!

American Girl Star Album Memory Book

Our little scrapbooking session was a hit!  We had so much fun...for those that may have missed my previous post, I made two little scrapbooks for Zoey and her friend Gracie to fill with photos and stickers and things to remember their visit to the American Girl store together this past summer.  I chose to make a star album because I thought it would be cool to have it fold out in a star...since American Girl has the star as part of their logo.  

I used patterned papers from the American Girl Crafts collection of papers that are sold and manufactured by EK Success.

Here is the book folded open and tied...pretty neat huh?

I made the covers of the books the same for each girl and let them do whatever they wanted to the insides...for the complete directions to create the basic star album itself check out the site Scrapbook-Crazy.  I created the album by following their directions with the exception of not using the 6 pieces of 8 x 5 3/4 inch pieces of cardstock.  We didn't need that much paper and it allowed the inside pages of the album to be a bit bigger so the girls were able to put more things on them.  If you aren't familiar with scrapbooking, to create something like this using a simple paper trimmer such as this one would really make this project easier.  I like using adhesive runners for my scrapbooking projects but any adhesive that is a favorite would be just fine.

I put out a basket of ready to go photos for them to use making sure that I had duplicates of all of them so each girl could get and use what they wanted.

Here is a close-up of the chipboard alphabet stickers from the American Girl Crafts collection.  They are adhesive backed so the girls just needed to peel off the backing and they were good to go!

I also pulled out some little sticky gems and then along with the alphabet letters we also had some little hearts and butterflies and things for them to use.  I cut some star journaling spots for them to use using my Silhouette Cameo die-cutting machine.

Here the girls are getting busy with their books!  I also gave them a sheet of paper that had a whole bunch of cute and fun quotes from the same paper pack by American Girl Crafts to cut and adhere to their book pages as they wanted.  A quick and easy way for them to have a little "journaling" on their pages!

It was fun listening to the girls talk about their memories from visiting the American Girl store this past summer as they scrapped.

Here are some peeks at the pages in their albums at various stages of progress...I LOVE THEM!!!

Zoey looks a wee bit crazy in this photo (perhaps it has something to do with how little sleep she got at this sleepover????) but the girls had SO much fun and I am thinking that we may need to schedule some fairly routine scrapbooking sessions with these two!  It was a great way to spend part of an afternoon.