My American Girl Store Visit

Yesterday my boyfriend and I ventured to the American Girl store in the Northpoint Mall in Alpharetta, GA, I've been there a couple times before, but it's been a few years.  I have never owned an American Girl doll.  I do have several other 18" dolls.  A few of them I made myself.  For the past year, I've been receiving the American Girl magazine.  It's always more impressive to see everything in person. 

There are three different categories for the American Girl dolls.  There are the historical dolls, the Girl of the Year dolls, and the My American Girl dolls.  Each is described in great detail here.

The entrance from the outside.

This is the first pair of Bitty Babies you see when you walk in from the exterior entrance.   Bitty Babies were designed for the 3 - 8 year old.  There are many different varieties and lots of clothing, furniture and accessories.

To the left of the entrance is the library.

I took a picture of this new cardboard theater set because it's one of their latest products.

This is another one of the newer products. 

I saw this car in a magazine.  It is super cute in person.

Let me stop here and say, after being in the story all of 10 mins, I was 'oooh' and 'ahhhed' out.  This after already experiencing this a few times before.  It is so hard not to get caught up in everything.  I truly understand how you can walk out of there spending tons of money.  First of all, there were no less than 200+ people in the store.  You couldn't take a step without someone else being right there.  And you didn't mind because everyone was so friendly.  Moms, dads, grandparents, kids, and everyone smiling and having a good time.  Little girls and big girls, toting their dolls around, pushing them in their strollers.  It's so amazing that dolls, these little inanimate objects, can bring about so much joy.  

American Girl began with historical characters.  You can see the history of how it all came about here.  One of the characters that was introduced was Addy Walker in 1993.  Each character has a separate window display.  I only took pictures of three of them.

This is the Kit Kittredge display.  She was introduced in 2000. 

This was another window display with Marie-Grace Gardner and Cecile Ray.  There are historical characters from New Orleans in 1853.  They were introduced in 2011.

The rest of the pictures are just of random displays throughout the store. 

I took this picture because the school desks and accessories were so cute.

Baking cupcakes and other sweets.

Making a gingerbread house.

Tennis players.

Lacrosse players.

Soccer players

Cheerleaders 

Winter display

Loved her hair, her little pjs, and the red glasses.

The stable.

This teepee was gorgeous!  

There was another display just like this with even more dolls.  This is part of the My American Girl dolls.  This is where the girl can select a doll that resembles her.  There are at least 40 different dolls to choose from.

This is the Mini-AG doll display.  They are 6" tall.  I've been tempted in the past to buy one and incorporate her in the Barbie stories.  They are cute.

I waited for the crowd to leave this area to take this picture.  It's the AG shoe department.

There are two more sections to the store.  The Doll Hair Salon and the Bistro.  At the Hair Salon, the dolls can get new hairdos, their ears pierced, a Spa package (this includes cleaning, cucumber slices, nail decals, flip flops and more).   The Bistro is where you can have brunch, lunch, or dinner, with or without your dolls.

This is the area in front of the Bistro.  It has little seats so your dolls can sit at the lunch table.  

This is the entrance to the Bistro.  

So I left the American Girl store empty handed, but full of joy.  I love seeing people happy.  One thing I found out in the midst of doing this post is that the American Girl Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mattel.  The woman, Pleasant Rowland, who created the American Girl in 1986, sold the company to Mattel in 1998 for $700 million.  Go Pleasant!!!