Our darling daughter was 4 years old a few days ago. One of the presents she really wanted was a Doodle Daisy and Auntie Emer obliged! She was totally delighted to recieve it.

To be fair, it looks really cute and the idea seemed like a good one. A fancy smancy spirograph generator, coupled with a whole “Fifi and the flowertots” vibe. How could it go wrong? Surely a big hit with the 4 year old?

The first problem was that we never managed to get a decent spirograph out of it. It ran on batteries so the whole process should be fairly automatic. Select a pattern, put the marker in, hit the switch on Daisy’s derriere and off we go. Simple? It always seemed to wobble too much so ended up scribbly. The different design selector button which was on Daisy’s underbelly wasn’t very clear, no indications of what any of the designs were, no numbers to make even a small differentiation.

The second problem was the the crayola markers ran out very quickly. There was a reorder form included with Daisy and markers can be ordered for €3.99 per pack of 15 from the Crayola in the UK.

Daisy’s rubber boots which could be used as stampers worked well as did the stencil hat, but these were only the accessories to the main toy, in my opinion.

Overall, this was a relatively expensive gift at approximately €20, which didn’t live up to expectations. This money would have probably better spent buying a Fifi doll, a separate “old fashioned” spirograph kit and markers.

That said, the kids are still playing with Daisy, but they’re not drawing or designing with her, just playing with her more as a static toy or doll.