For your budding young artist! (Crayola Painting Chest)

Member Name: kingfisher111

Product:	Crayola Painting Chest
Date:	17/07/07 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good variety

Disadvantages: none!

My four year old daughter absolutely adores anything and everything to do with art! Every day when I collect her from nursery she brings her latest masterpiece and we have so much of her art on the walls that we have renamed the dining room 'Rachel's Art Gallery'!

Therefore, when her birthday was approaching and the grandparents asked for an idea about what to get her as a present, the Crayola Painting Chest seemed an ideal suggestion. I had spotted it on the Amazon website and liked the fact that it had quite a few different things inside it to get my daughter's interest.

So when it was her birthday and she opened up all the wrapping paper she was highly delighter with what she saw. All of the art materials come in a sturdy plastic chest which is great for storage and making sure nothing goes missing. It also has a very exciting picture on the front which show the array of materials which are inside. My daughter probably spent about five minutes just looking at this and saying 'wow' before even opening the box!

Once you look inside though, what do you get? There are four generous size plastic ready mix paints - red, blue, yellow and green - ideal for mixing and creating lots of new colours in the paint mixing dish that is also supplied. There's also a very necessary paintbrush as well! It's the rest of the bits that are probably more interesting though.

There are three sponge sheets with lots of different shapes to press out and use. These can then be used to make lots of picture prints. THere are three different themes - pets, sealife and fun! My daughter really loves this as I don't think she has used sponges at nursery yet and has made some wonderful, colourful animal pictures. She is also learning how to moderate how much paint she pours and puts on the sponge.

There are also some plastic stencil shapes - a butterfly, a fish and a parrot. These are also a lot of fun and help my daughter to paint some more precise pictures. There is quite a skill to holding the stencil still and probably needs some adult help to start with, but she will soon master this!

Luckily, all of this comes with a fair sized plastic mat which you can put either on the table or the floor in an attempt not to make a mess (although in my experience the most determined child will always find a way!) There is also a small pad of paper but this probably won't last long so you will need to be getting the supplies in!

The good thing about everything being in the chest is that there is also a bit more extra space in it, so if you have any other art materials there might be room for these as well so you can keep all the bits together.

So overall I think this is a pretty decent kit and I like the fact that it has introduced my daughter to stencilling and printing techniques. It does say on the box that it is not suitable for children under thirty six months, mainly due to small parts, although if i am supervising I don't think I will stop my two and a half year old using it too!

As I said earlier I spotted it on Amazon where it is currently being sold for £13.25. Incidentally if you buy from Argos through a cashback site such as cashinco (see my review) you can get 3.5% cashback!

Summary: Watch out Picasso!