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Stix2 Craft Foam Pads
by haybel19
I love these foam pads they are another of those items that make it on my absolute essentials list.
These foam pads are sticky on both sides allowing you to attach to an embellishment, and then to adhere to your project creating both depth and layers. To use you simply peel up from the sheet, atttach the number requried to ... your embellishment and peel up the backing paper to reveal the adhesive.
Foam pads are available in a number of sizes and depths. They allow you to add depth to your project and are also great with creating decoupage layers if like me you do not like to use glues such as pinflair.
I like to use these to add greetings and other embellishment and always use when doing decoupage. The main downsides for me are that it can be fiddly to remove the backing paper as it is very small as are the squares and these little bits of paper get everywhere!
Unlike with glues it is often possible to gently peel up and reprosition an item if necessary.
Foam pads are widely available online and in craft shops. Costs vary according to the number of sheets in a pack but are typically £1-2.
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Wilko Paint Pots Non Spill
by thriftygiftyisme
=Wilko Paint Pots Non Spill=
I know these are for children aged 4+, but I brought some last year before October half term, as when one of my daughters friend stays over she loves doing crafting, and even if I plastered the wall and floor with plastic she would find a way of getting glue or paint everywhere.
=Paint ... Pots=
I found these in Wilkinson, and they were a pack of 3 "Non Spill Paint pots" in Wilko's own brand and were £1.00. I brought mine in store but they can also be purchased on line, although there may be delivery costs
=The Pots=
The pots are made from a clear plastic, and they have a pull of lid, with a hole in the middle, the set we had the pot lids were yellow, blue and red.
=My Views=
The pots are ok, there not the best quality, I thought they were thin in texture, but they do seem durable and fit for the purpose.
The brush fits easy through the hole, ok we cheat and I use the pot for glue, but the difference it has made to the tidying up process is brilliant, as during use if you get too much glue on the brush you can just tap the brush at the top of the hole and it drops back into the container.
=For all Ages=
I appriciate they are really for children, but I even use one myself when crafting as I can squeeze some glue as I try card making and other bits and dabs,
=To Clean=
I just empty any glue back into the tub and just wash in soapy water, the same principle would be if you used paints.
=my daughter=
My daughter is 10, so doesn't need the paint aspect, but for anyone with younger children, I would say this is a product that should be in everyone crafting set, i can see the potential that they are worth their weight in gold.
=What would I change=
What I would like to have seen would be another set of lids that you could use to keep the paint fresh, as it can be a mess trying to pour the paint back into containers, even if they added 50p extra for the lids, this would still be excellent value for money.
To sum up, what can you get for a £1 that lasts - very little bar these pots
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Hasbro Play-Doh
by milliesmum123
My little girl is a big PlayDoh fan. As soon as she was born I couldn't wait to start buying PlayDoh so I could relive my own childhood and have an excuse to get rolling and making all kinds of shapes! For her first birthday I bought her some PlayDoh but we didn't begin playing with it until she was about 18 months. Now that she is five ... our PlayDoh collection has grown massively and we have all kinds of different tubs, cutters, machines and things! I think it's a brilliant creation which helps children to develop their imaginations and their creativity and Millie loves it too!
Play Doh
When I was younger I used to have PlayDoh. I saw recently that there are new sets called '50th birthday versions' which shows just how well established this brand is. I had no idea it had been around so long but I can really see how it has stood the test of time. Play Doh is a child-friendly modelling dough which comes in a variety of different colours. What is great about it is that it can be used over and over again, so long as you put the lid back on properly it can last years! When we have used Plasticine I have found it isn't as effective and doesn't last as long. Not only is the dough itself really good quality and reliable they also bring out various other bits to go with it to make playing with it even more fun. Some of the sets that we have include the Fun Factory, A milkshake maker, a cookie machine, a tub full of animals cutters and a sweet maker. These all can be used to make playing with this all the more fun. They bring out new designs regularly which helps to keep this fresh and up to date so I think it has stood the test of time thanks to it always updating.
A four tub set
I have recently bought Millie a four tub set of PlayDoh. It cost £4 and includes 566g of dough. The set that we have has pastel colours, these are pale purple, yellow, orange and blue so it is ideal for a girl or a boy to play with. Most of the colours we have already are really bright so it's nice to have these different tones. I bought them because I thought it would be nice to have different colours but also because the ones we already have are beginning to get a bit messy now so it was time for some nice fresh ones. The tubs come in a four pack with them being lined up in a row with cardboard securing them together. You can see through the top of the cardboard to the tubs so you can see what colours you are getting. On the packaging are pictures of what you can make with it including a slice of cake and some flowers. This is nice to see it always makes Millie want to try to make them and gives her bits of inspiration, they of course never turn out like the picture but that's not the point! The information on the box looks intense but it's in many different languages. It comes with a warning that it contains wheat.
Playing
Playing with PlayDoh is fun but my little problem is that I find it really hard to get the lids off the tubs. My fingers are a little numb from some treatment I had and as a result I struggle with tasks like taking lids off things but these are particularly hard. They seem really stiff and because the plastic is quite thin it soon digs into my fingers and it's difficult to lift off. Millie can never do it by herself so I do have to do it for her and just take about five attempts! It is good though that the lid does fit so tight as that is what keeps it from drying out.
Playing with this PlayDoh is lots of fun as you can do what you like with it. It is really easy to shape as it's quite soft even when you first begin playing with it. When we have played with Plasticine it was much harder so was more difficult to shape until you'd warmed it with your hands. It is really easy to shape so playing with it is fun right away. Millie's favourite thing to do with these tubs is to get all of the dough out and then use her cutters from another set and make lots of animals with it in different colours. She then asks me to show her a picture of the animals so we look on the Internet to look at what they look like in real life. Another thing Millie does is make shapes herself like a ball, a snake, a sunshine where she just uses her hands and her imagination. I love seeing her do this and it really takes me back to when I used to play with it. She can play with this for hours and doesn't get bored and the great thing is that the PlayDoh doesn't dry out within this time, it remains just as easy to use and good quality as when she first gets it out.
Learning
PlayDoh is proving to be a very good learning tool for us at the moment. Millie's teacher has encouraged all children to use PlayDoh to get their hands used to moulding and shaping the dough so it helps develop their fingers for writing. I never thought of it like this but I can see how it must help. All the mixing and rolling and squeezing that Millie does is helping her to develop her muscles and fine motor skills all the time.
Her imagination has come on brilliantly whilst we've had this, she makes little balls of PlayDoh and says they are seeds and then she'll make some flowers and show me that that is what the seed has grown into, it's great to see that she is learning about things like this through play and developing. I like how she can be really pleased with something she's made which can be as simple as just a really round ball which she says is a coin. Millie is also learning about colours especially now we have these pale ones too, she is able to see that as well as bright purple you can also get a paler version of the colour too, we have put them side by side and studied the differences and she finds it fascinating, when we have been out she has pointed to various things and said how it looks like the kind of purple like her new PlayDoh so it's making her appreciate these little differences that previously she never noticed.
I am also using PlayDoh to help Millie to understand about taking care of things and tidying up. On one occasion we forgot to put it away before we headed out for the day and when we returned parts of the dough had gone hard and had to be thrown away. On another occasion she has mixed the dough together so it has all mingled together and gone a funny brown so now she takes good care of the PlayDoh. She knows that after playing with it we have to tidy it up properly and make sure we try to put all the right colours together to keep them as clean as possible.
Others
The PlayDoh is easy to store, the tubs can be stacked on top of each other so can help to save space but we just have a big basket full of PlayDoh items. Because it is all stored in the tubs it is kept neat and out of the way. The lids do have to be put on properly or it will dry out.
My only negative with this (apart from the lid) is that it can get all over the place and it's really hard to get out of carpets! It can get quite messy although now Millie is slightly older it isn't as bad as it used to be! So sometimes it can take a while to clean up and if she's used the cutters I have to sometimes wash them out to get the bits that are stuck on off.
Conclusion
I think that PlayDoh is a brilliant invention and I can't believe it has been around for so long but I can see exactly why! It is just so enjoyable to play with and it is really up to your child's imagination what they do with it. Millie can play with this for hours without getting bored and because I don't get it out for her all that often when we do play with this she is really excited. She spends such a long time making a variety of things and it's lovely to see.
I like all the different things you can buy to go with your dough and you can buy it for a variety of prices, I have seen a set of mini tubs for as little as a pound so when you are on a budget you can still hopefully afford to get some. Out of all the sets we have though I think the most simple ones- the cutters- are what Millie plays with the most, the fancy machines are fun for a while but their novelty wear off faster than the simple ones.
This is a toy that I really like to see Millie playing with as I like to see her using her imagination and being creative and what is great is that it can be played with over and over again, it's not like it runs out or goes stale (so long as you put the lid back on) so it's really great to be reusable.
I really recommend PlayDoh to parents. Some of my friends say they dislike it because it makes such a mess and I do agree with them that it can which is why Millie doesn't play with this every day! But when we do get it out I make sure we have a sheet down first to protect carpet and she always helps me to tidy it away so it's helping her to understand responsibility too! I don't know how old children are that play with this, it says from age 2 on some products and age 3 on others but I think the age it goes up to really depends upon your child. Millie is five and still plays with it a lot and I can't see her growing out of it any time soon so it can last a long while too. It's very good quality and a great toy. Highly recommended.
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