I WILL NOT be a sucker for a sticker (ELC Sticker Station)

Member Name: sue26

Product:	ELC Sticker Station
Date:	24/03/02 (673 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good for vrenting your anger on

Disadvantages: Absolutely everything about it

You know how it is, whether you`re an adult or a child, when it comes to toy shops we all somehow lose our power of sensible thought. There you are wandering around the aisles looking for something sensible, when all of a sudden `POW`, there it happens, suddenly everything you see looks cool. Round the corner and there you see it, such a brilliant toy that you must buy it for your child, nephew, niece. Round the corner and there`s another such toy, and another, and yet another.

Well that`s what I believe happened to my children`s uncle when he went christmas shopping. Of course such a thing never happens to me when I go shopping because I know that I`m the one that has to put up with the toy in question, but I do always seem to be on the receiving end.

So here I am telling you about one such toy that was bought for my 4 yr old daughter this christmas. The toy in question is the Early Learning Centre Sticker Station.

Now to a 4yr old this item looks absolutely brilliant, that is until you open the box. While I`m explaining the ins and outs of this toy, please bear in mind that on the box it states that this toy is suitable for children from the age of 4.

Contents of box:

1 sticker station, 1 roll of sticker paper, 1 roll of transparent sticker film, 2 sheets of sticker artwork, 1 stencil, 1 plastic fitting plate, and 5 cards.

The sticker station itself is bright purple with a bright orangle handle and is made from very thick durable plastic, so it won`t break easily, I suppose that`s one plus point towards this toy.

The sticker paper is just a roll of paper that is shiny on one side that sits inside a groove at the top of the station.

The transparent sticker film is a roll of film that is sticky on the inside and this fits snugly into the other end of the station with the aid of a spindle which slots into 2 grooves.

The sheets of artwork are 2 A4 sheets that have about 26 differ
ent brightly coloured pictures for you to cut out. A lot of these seem to be cartoon animals, but there are a few flowers, hearts, people and other inanimate objects thrown in for variety. We did get through these pretty quickly when we eventually got the machine to work, but once you`ve finished these you can use pretty much any pictures from old catalogues and magazines to make your stickers.

Insructions:

Now this is where the FUN bit starts, and boy did we have fun with this. Here are the nice simple instructions that are depicted on the outside of the box. Insert your picture and roll out the sticker. Cut the sticker with the integral cutter. Trim with scissors (not included). Ha, and then some poor sucker, namely ME, gets to open the box and get to grips with the real instructions.

Firstly, you need to insert the sticker paper with the peel off adhesive backing facing downwards, then feed the paper under the paper guides so that the end of the roll is touching the rollers. O.k, so far so good, you still with me?

Then, with your sticker film securely in place mounted on the spindle, you have to stick the fitting plate to the end of the film. The fitting plate is just a piece of square green plastic with a paw print on one side. He, he, this is the good bit, if the plate is not stuck down exactly in line with the edge of the film then you`re buggered. Remember a 4 yr old is supposed to be able to do this, well it took me about 15 minutes to get the stupid stuff to stick in the right place. Do you get the feeling I`m getting a bit irate around this point?

Here`s where I get even more irate, because you then have to turn the fixing plate over so that the sticky side of the film then sticks to the other roll of paper with the fitting plate resting snugly against the rollers. Ha, you try and line it up straight without ripping and folding the paper up all over the place (remember 4yr olds again). When you do finally m
anage to line it up, you then have to turn the orange handle so that the fixing plate with all it`s paper attached correctly, runs smoothly through the rollers and out through the tiny little gap at the front of the machine.

Quickly, somebody take this off me before I throw it through the window. Firstly, through the rollers no problem, but then it gets stuck, the fixing plate is showing no signs of emerging, but the paper is still rolling up behind it. The gap this has to get through is just over 7cm wide and 2mm deep, so it`s not like you can shove your fingers inside and yank the plate out.

So you then have to turn the handle backwards to unblock the paper and just try again. The thing is though, that even if you line the sticky film up perfectly, which I know I did, it doesn`t seem to want to stick to the paper in a straight line, so eventually the film starts sticking diagonally and comes off the edge of the paper. So either way you`re still buggered. O.k, fast forward another 20 minutes to when the plate eventually emerges out the front. You then remove the plate by sliding the cutter all the way across to slice the paper. The blade is fully encased so there`s no need to worry about any fingers suddenly disappearing. You still with me?

You then have to cut out one of the pictures(remember 4yr olds again), put it on the paper just in front of the rollers, wind the handle so that the paper runs through the rollers, and as it does the sticky film will stick to the front of the picture and the complete thing will come out of the gap at the front.

At this point it will be fair to mention that the blade on the cutter is not 2 sided so that you must slide it back into position when you`ve used it before you roll any more paper through the gap. If you don`t do this, you risk jamming it up so that you`ll have to go through the whole of the fixing plate business again. The instructions don`t tell you this and I just assumed it was
2 sided, get the picture, grrrrrrrrr.

Once your sticker is out the other end, leave a little gap and slice the paper. Then you have to trim the sticker (there`s those scissors again). If you don`t leave a white border around the picture when you cut it out, then the sticker will just fall apart, and you`ll have just wasted about 2 precious hours of your life for nothing. At this point you can also draw around one of the plastic stencil shapes to make your sticker even more appealing. Yeah, like a picture of a dog bone is something I just can`t live without.

After all that I`m surprised I`m still here never mind you lot.

So, what`s the end result like? It`s absolutely useless. The stickers won`t stick to anything for longer than 2 seconds before dropping off, so I`ve just wasted all that time for nothing. My daughter wasn`t very impressed either. So that was half of boxing day wasted because there was no way my 4 year old could have done any of this herself, so I was the sucker that had to do it for her, and I was also the sucker that had to clear up all the mess afterwards, talk about a waste of paper.

As it was a pressie I didn`t ask how much it cost so I had to look it up on the ELC website, and for this lovely time waster you can expect to pay £10 from the Early Learning Centre, which I suppose isn`t too pricey, and you can also buy refill packs of the paper and sticker film for £2, but do bear in mind that considering how much paper you waste while tring to set this stupid thing up, you do get through the rolls pretty quickly. And NO, it doesn`t get easier with practise.

So, would I recommend the sticker station? Well you can always buy it as a wind up for someone you don`t really like. My daughters` box and contents has now been hidden at the top of a very high cupboard because I`m not going through that again. And if you think I`m exagerating, then I dare you to buy it and try to work the bugger yourself.

Summary: