Toucan Box - Review

With the rubbish weather we had over half term and everyone stuck inside I thought it would be a good idea to get the Toucan Box out that we had recently been sent. The idea behind the craft box is that you join up on a monthly basis and each month you receive a personalised craft box, full of everything you need to complete four projects based around a theme. They also include an illustrated book that you can read with your child. 'Dazzle Duckling' is now Jack's favourite book of the moment. The boxes are priced from £16.95 per month for a 12 month subscription and rise to £19.95 for a monthly or one off box which, considering you receive everything you need (apart from scissors), is pretty good - you don't end up with loads of bits left over cluttering up valuable cupboard space (like we have) every time you want to do a craft project with your children.


The theme of the box that we received was 'Birds' and includes step by step instructions how to build a bird feeder, Toucan family, Bird Glider and Peacock collage. Hanna and Jack chose to make the Peacock collage and Toucan family together and Hanna would be making the bird feeder on her own another time, without 'helpful hands' around.


The collage was first and Jack had a helping hand from big brother to trace around the templates and then passed them onto Hanna to cut out, which they then glued onto the paper, sprinkled some glitter and hey presto, a lovely collage. It was all going well....

 

We then moved onto the Toucan family but Hanna was particularly disappointed to see that there was no black paint included in the box and only two pots of finger paint instead of the three shown in the booklet. They decided to make blue Toucans instead and chose to paint them with our own paintbrushes rather than with their fingers. This kept them busy for a while, although it was quite tricky to leave a white circle unpainted on each of the bodies. After colouring all the various body parts in it was time to glue them together, which is where we came a bit unstuck (no pun intended).  The base of the Toucan curled up slightly once the PVA glue had been applied, making the bird a little unstable, meaning that each time Hanna tried to stand it up to let it dry it would fall over and a wing (or it's head) would fall off. The glue just didn't seem to be drying quickly enough and in hindsight we should have perhaps left each part to dry before attempting to glue the next, and maybe coloured in some of the many colouring sheets whilst we were waiting.

In the end the Toucans dried and Toucan Daddy now stands pride of place on top of the microwave.

The Toucan Boxes are a great idea, especially for those that don't have craft shops near to them, are housebound for any reason, don't have the space to store vast quantities of craft stuff or anyone that wants something to look forward to doing each month with their children. You can also send the boxes as a gift, as a one off or a subscription.