A picture paints a thousand words! (Disney Princess Magic Artist Light Box)

Member Name: kingfisher111

Product:	Disney Princess Magic Artist Light Box
Date:	03/03/09 (424 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fun, pink, full of princesses

Disadvantages: drains batteries

Both my daughters absolutely love any form of art work and to me, the best things are their spontananeous scribbles that they have done all by themselves. However, there are times when they want to produce something that is perhaps a little more 'perfect' and for this, the Disney Princess Magic Art Box is ideal.

I spotted this at Christmas as part of a ToysRus multi-buy deal on Disney Princess products. Both girls absolutely love all the Disney Princesses so I knew that they would really like this especially as it gives them the opportunity to have a go at drawing all their favourite princesses.

The other good thing about it is that it is pink and as any self respecting four or five year old will tell you - only that colour will do. The box is made out of sturdy plastic and has a very handy carrying handle. There is also a tray at one end where you can keep your pens. Inside the box there is a light bulb and when you turn this on it lights up a drawing screen displaying lots of pictures of princesses that your child can trace over. Because it lights up, the pictures will show up through most paper that you place on top.

What is quite clever about this box is the fact that you can change the scene (and therefore the pictures you can trace) by turning either of two wheels at the bottom of the box. The actual length of the pictures that scroll along is about 120 cm so there are quite a lot of pictures you can choose from. These are not big scenes but lots of little pictures for you to choose what you want and then mix and match in order to create your own pictures. There are, of course, all of the princesses such as Snow White and CInderella and also pictures of many of the characters and orther things associated with them. Disappointingly though, although there are three pictures of Snow White there are no dwarfs which seems a bit of an oversight!

It is reasonably easy for a small child to scroll through the pictures although it is quite slow and has an almost rickety feel to doing so. Also you can only see a small amount of the pictures at any one time so it is hard to remember where some of the others might be.

The light box is powered by four AAA batteries. These did come with the box but if you forget to turn it off they do soon run out. The way it lights up is very good for tracing the pictures though and both girls have been very pleased with their results. It does not come with any paper or pens though so you will need to make sure that you have some available. We just use normal A4 paper although this is slightly bigger than the screen so is not an ideal fit. Also I think it is a shame that there are no clips or pegs provided to keep the paper in place, because let's face it - when you are only three the paper is inclined to move all over the place.

This art product is recommended for children of age three and above. My youngest is almost four and she does enjoy using it, but as with most art things, the older the child is the more successful they are likely to be for having more developed fine motor skills.

At the moment it is on sale for £14.99 at ToysRus. Having just checked this price it does state that it come with paper and pencils but I'm pretty sure ours didn't although with two small children it is always possible that they could have been lost very quickly! However, there is no mention of additional materials on the box it came in!

Overall, this is a good product for encouraging children to draw, It's quite expensive for what it is and I have to admit I prefer my daughters' pictures that are 'all their own work!'

Summary: Great for little princesses who want to draw little princesses!