For the majority of my mom days I was always shopping for boys. Now with two girls added to the bunch I get to do the fun girl gift shopping now too. The baby is easy to shop for I have done baby girl shopping for my cousins and friends before. Shopping for tween (preteen) girl gifts is new to me. Below you can find a few gift ideas for tween girls that can help you check your girl off the gift buying list.
My step daughter is all most 12. She seems to be at the age where she still enjoys the younger side of playing with some toys but also wants to feel like she’s being a teen. When we had the opportunity to play with toys from Baby Born, Project MC2, and Num Noms I was hoping that she would enjoy the time spent playing with her little sister and me.
my thoughts
The first thing she opened was the Num Noms nail polish maker set. My step daughter and I both enjoy painting our nails at home so we were looking forward to making some custom colors together. She made a blue shade with the “milk” base and blueberry “flavoring” and I made a pink glitter color with the “milk” and strawberry add in.
The 2 sided cafe is cute. It’s very fitting to the Num Noms line. You choose your scented colors, add glitter if you want more, mix it up, and paint your nails. Be prepared before hand with a few paper towels. The “milk” doesn’t squeeze in to the polish bottles very well which can leave you with white glittery hands, polish bottle, and counter if not careful.
Once you have your base and color in the polish bottle you put the bottle in the mixer and give it a spin. We did the mixer for a few minutes and then I still gave it a few good shakes in my hand for good measure. Overall the set is cute and kept my step daughter entertained for about an hour the first day. She painted the fake press on nails with the blue polish color she made. I let her paint my nails the pink polish color that I made.
The second gift idea is the Baby Born interactive baby doll. It’s a doll that can eat/drink, sleep, use the potty, wet her diapers, and more and all without the use of batteries. My step daughter loves playing “mom” and has had a variety of baby dolls in the few years we have been a family.
She prefers the dolls that do things like a real baby would. She has started playing dolls with her little sister now too. It’s so cute to watch. The Baby Born comes with a plate and spoon, birth certificate, pacifier, bottle, diaper, potty, and baby food mix. This doll allows the girls to play house and be mommy without batteries for the doll. With the baby food and bottle she can feed the baby lunch and then press the belly button to make her use the potty or wet her diaper.
Looking for more gift ideas for tween girls? My step daughter introduced me to a Netflix original show Project MC2 a month or so ago. If you have a girl that enjoys that show, making things, and wearing perfume then the Project mc2 perfumer maker will be fun for her. This set comes with 2 scents of violet and poppy to mix. To us the violet was a little strong on its own but once mixed with the poppy it wasn’t so bad. You can also use different scents by using baking extracts that you can purchase. I think orange citrus would make a fun scent or some clear vanilla extract.
The set up of the perfume maker was fairly easy to follow. The paper that comes with the set tells you what is in the set and what extra items you can have on hand to make the perfume a little more fun, like food coloring. If you don’t make sure that the parts are attached correctly it will leak out of the bottom on the the table or surface it’s sitting on. We added pink food coloring to one side of the perfume station and blue to the other side. We ended up with a dark purple perfume in the beaker to pour in to the spritzer containers. It only takes 2 drops of the scents to make the perfume so the scent bottles will last a good while, especially if you make more with household ingredients like vanilla extract.
Not only are the girls having fun making perfume but they are also doing a little learning along the way. Conduct your own experiments at home or on the go, just like the girls from Project Mc2. Picking up S.T.E.A.M. with Science-Technology-Engineering-Art-Math. As seen in the Emmy nominated Netflix original series, Adrienne Attoms’ next mission is to use her cosmetic chemistry skills to formulate the perfect look for saving the world and girls can formulate their own perfumes using cosmetic chemistry with Project Mc2 Perfume Science Kit.
These gift ideas for tween girls are a part of the #MegaChristmas17 holiday gift guide. You can view all of the other gift ideas here.