Summer Fun with the Fuzzikins Campervan Carry Case

Fuzzikins craft sets are a great gift for creative kids that come with extra added play value! The Fuzzikins are adorable little fuzzy animal figures that you can colour in however you choose using washable pens before playing with them.

The craft sets offer hours of fun as kids can customise the Fuzzikins and their  accessories with the pens and stickers and then enjoy some imaginative play. The Fuzzikins animals can be washed and  coloured in again and again to create new looks.

Freddy received the Fuzzikins Campervan Carry Case from Interplay (£19.99 rrp). The yellow and cream classic campervan can be decorated using the three colour-your-own sticker sheets with the felt pens that come with the set. With rainbows, flowers and peace symbols, kids can enjoy some real summery, hippy vibes when customising the campervan. Inside, the van has furniture for the cats including a table and chairs and a pull down bed, as well as a driver seat and steering wheel. The carry handle on top of the van doubles up as a surf board for catching waves. Perfect for a summer of fun at the beach. The set includes two cat figures, one medium and one large. They also have their own little felt blanket for when having a cat nap.

The side of the campervan opens up to reveal the inside of the vehicle when playing and it has real wheels allowing it to be pushed around. Everything can fit inside the campervan for storage.It's a really good design and a lot of fun. We liked that the cats can be washed and recoloured, meaning that element of the toy can be revisited numerous times.

I was impressed that the Fuzzikins sets combine two types of play: the creative craft side as you decorate both the cats and their accessories and the miniature, imaginative play world where you can act out adventures with your characters.

                 


This beautifully designed activity craft set encourages creative and imaginative play and is all contained in a handy carry case. Fuzzikins craft sets bring a fuzzi world of fun and imagination to creative kids.

For more information visit:
https://interplayuk.com/collections/fuzzikins-craft/products/campervan-carry-case.

Bug Hunting to celebrate the release of Miniscule in Vue cinemas

This half term, Vue cinemas are showing Minuscule - Valley of the Lost Ants, courtesy of Lionsgate Films. Using amazing CGI animation combined with real life backdrops, Minuscule transports families deep into the undergrowth to share an adventure where the tiniest minibeasts are the stars of the show.

Fighting over a box of sugar cubes from a discarded picnic, two tribes of ants, red and black, go head to head in an action packed battle that threatens the very safety of the black ants' nest. A brave little heroic ladybird finds himself caught up in the fighting, and has to use his ingenuity to save the day. Take a look at the trailer, it looks like it's going to be a great family movie with brilliant visual effects and lots of humour!

        


To celebrate the release of the creepy crawly animated adventure Minuscule in cinemas on May 27th 2016, we have been given some bug related goodies to get us acquainted with the stars on the show in our own back garden. We received a Bug Safari kit, a My Living World educational toy from Interplay.

The Bug Safari allows children to learn about and explore nature on their own doorstep. There is such a variety of mini-beasts in the garden for children to discover. From the teeny tiny ants to the colourful spotted ladybirds, the bugs of Minuscule can be caught and studied and then safely released using the tongs, tweezers, brush, field lens and viewing pot. Children can get up close to the wonderful world of bugs, nurturing a love and appreciation of wildlife and nature.

My own little budding entomologist Freddy has really enjoyed learning about bugs and searching for them in the garden. Using the booklet that came with the Bug Safari set, he has found out where to find insects and has discovered some fascinating facts about the species. The majority of his finds so far have been slugs and ants, and he has avoided catching spiders because they scare him! Freddy is hoping to find a butterfly so he can look at its wings through his field lens.

The Bug Safari has been a great introduction to the world of bugs and has peaked Freddy's interest in minibeasts in time for the release of Minuscule.

Check out the timings at your local Vue Cinema from May 27th for some family half term fun.

Design and Make Steampunk Jewellery

Our latest product to review from Interplay is the My Style "Design and Make Steampunk Jewellery" set. Inspired by the vintage steampunk genre, the set features aesthetic Victorian-esque designs from 19th century steam powered machinery such as cogs, gears, washers, nuts and keys. 

The Steampunk set includes everything needed to create eight projects, making necklaces, bracelets and earrings, and comes with a neat little box with compartments to store all the bits and pieces. There are decorative washers, nuts, gears, key charms, angel wing charms and ball chains, in both brass and silver colours, as well as ribbon, earring hooks, jump rings, craft wire, glue and flat nose pliers. Even after the eight projects have been completed there will be plenty of components left over to have a go at designing your own creations. The fully illustrated instruction leaflet has step by step instructions and is easy to follow. A ruler is printed on the bottom of one of the double pages for measuring lengths of ribbon and positioning components, which was extremely handy.

We were very impressed with the contents. It is good quality stuff that looks really cool and funky. The girls were able to complete the projects easily, without having to deal with any fiddly knotting or plaiting techniques - which usually proves their downfall when making jewellery from kits!

The charms fitted to the jump rings and attached to the chains, ribbons or ear hooks. This process worked well using the flat nose pliers which squeezed the metal rings shut tightly. They are a good tool for the job. Using the PVA glue proved a little bit ineffective, so we switched to a stronger clear glue that we had, in order to stick charms together. It worked very well and the pieces have stayed attached after being worn.

This set gets a resounding thumbs up from Kezia and Ella. The finished pieces really are extremely wearable and look shop bought, encapsulating the Steampunk trend very well. The quality of the charms makes the end results look impressive. It is nice to see a craft set inspired by this popular genre, giving girls something edgier and cooler to work with. It suited my daughters perfectly.

Priced at £19.99, this set provides everything needed to make eight pieces of jewellery, and includes the reusable pliers and the storage box, making it excellent value for money. Recommended for ages 8 and over, the projects help develop jewellery making skills and provide inspiration for budding designers to create their own pieces.

You can find the Steampunk Jewellery set at www.interplayuk.com/mystyle/steampunk-jewellery.

Interplay Wire Craft Rings Review

Here Inside the Wendy House, we are big fans of the Interplay brand, which encourages creativity in children through their exciting and innovative activity kits.

The latest one we received to review was the My Style Craft Design & Make Wire Craft Rings set, containing instructions and materials to create eight fashion rings. My daughter Kezia and her best friend Georgia are my enthusiastic testers when it comes to anything crafty like this, so I put them to work independently to create some fun, fashionable jewellery. At 12 they are well over the recommended 8+ that this kit is aimed at.

The set included three lengths of jewellery wire in varying thicknesses - two silver, one purple, a pink handled pair of pliers, a ring forming tool and a bag of assorted beads, as well as a fully illustrated step by step instruction manual. All you need in addition to the contents is a pair of scissors or wire cutters to cut the wire and a ruler to measure lengths.

The instructions really are very comprehensive and clear, but unfortunately the procedures were just too complicated for the girls to manage. They struggled to work out how to make even the easiest ring design look like a piece of jewellery and not just a twisted length of wire. So I stepped in to assist and have to admit that I found myself wishing I was an experienced and highly skilled jewellery maker and not just a slightly cack-handed mum, because I really wanted to impress the girls! Alas this was not to be.

Mastering the spiral and loop making using the pliers was very fiddly and we were just not very good at it. Try as we might we could not turn a length of wire into the elaborately twisted, bejewelled, knotted, twirled and intricately designed rings illustrated in the manual.  I'm sure that someone with more dexterity and jewellery making flair could create something beautiful from the lengths of wire and beads - but sadly on this occasion we weren't up for the job.

Although this review is not as positive as other Interplay sets we have tested, that is not to say that the kit itself was in any way substandard. The wire is good quality and the tools are reusable, so can be used not just for this activity but for any other future jewellery making crafts. They will be a great addition to a craft box. The instructions are well described with step by step detail and clear illustrations. Our problem was our inability to translate them into the skills required to create something that looked like the expected end result. The rings we made were just not really something you'd want to wear.

For anyone with a real artistic flair and with good dexterity when working with intricate detail, this would be a great starter set for jewellery making, teaching skills and knowledge for the design and creation of bespoke pieces.

To balance out our issues with our lack of skills, I have looked at reviews for this kit on Amazon and some are very positive. Here is one:

"The instructions are great and we really felt like we were learning how to be professional jewellery makers. Hours and hours of play from just one box." 

And this is a stock image of what you could make with a bit of skill using the kit.

At £7.99 this is a great price for a set that can make eight rings. You can find it online at:  www.interplayuk.com/mystyle/wire-craft-rings

Glitter Tattoos Review

Kezia received a Glitter Tattoos kit from Interplay to try out. She had one of her friends round for a sleepover, giving her the ideal opportunity to test it out in the best way possible. Kits like this are so much fun to share with friends!

The kit includes 27 designs of tattoo stencils, with two of each design, along with six pots of glitter, a bottle of cosmetic glue and two brushes.

The instruction booklet gives clear, detailed step by step instructions for using the kit, and it is easy to create some fun, eye catching, sparkly, temporary tattoos.

Firstly, you need to choose a stencil from the 27 designs and peel away the backing paper. The adhesive stencil sticks to the skin gently. Then, you brush the cosmetic glue over the stencil, then use the soft brush to apply glitter to the glue.

Once the design is covered with glitter, you peel away the stencil to leave the glittery design on the skin. Simply brush away any excess from around the design to give the best result.

The finished effect is really nice with a good clean finish.  It's easy and fun to do, recommended for girls aged 8 and over. The tattoo can be removed using soap and water.

The girls enjoyed using the kit and creating the colourful, sparkly tattoos on their arms.  Here is a video of them demonstrating just how simple it is to use the Glitter Tattoos kit.


                      


The Fab Lab Glitter Tattoos from Interplay have an RRP of £9.99.  This would be a great kit to have for a birthday party or sleepover, with enough contents to make lots of brilliant glitter tattoos.

Shrink Design Jewellery

MyStyle Craft Design & Make Shrink Design Jewellery from Interplay is a craft activity that uses shrink plastic as a medium for making ultra trendy and edgy accessories. Seven pieces of jewellery can be created including angel wing earrings and a text necklace. The full colour instruction booklet teaches the techniques required, and there are enough of the materials to make your own additional pieces.

The technique you use to make the jewellery is quite simple.  You choose a design from the booklet and trace it onto the shrink plastic sheet, colour it in and cut it out. Using the hole punch, you make a hole which will be used to thread the charm onto the string or jump ring.  Once the charm is prepared, you pop it into the oven on a cardboard sheet at 160 degrees for just a couple of minutes until it shrinks down.  Once cooled down, you can use the charm to make jewellery using the other components included in the kit.

The finished charms were really cute and the colours concentrated to make them look very impressive.  The shrinking process makes them thick and sturdy and ideal to use on necklaces, bracelets and earrings.  Kizzy also made some of her own designs and created some of her own accessories including a beaded phone charm with my name on it!

My favourite thing that she created was a necklace inspired by Daryl Dixon of The Walking Dead fame.  It has a Zombie charm along with the angel wings that Daryl has on the back of his waistcoat, attached to a cord with jump rings.  I loved it. It looked really professional and very cool!

The angel wings also featured on a pair of earrings that looked really stunning and unique.  There is an additional downloadable PDF, which has extra designs including cute cupcakes, ice creams, lettering and a moustache.

I was impressed at just how many pieces could be made using the shrink plastic sheets, clasps, beads, cord, rings and earring hooks. Kizzy was able to work independently and really enjoyed the creativity that this kit allowed her.

At £9.99 it is a great value set, which makes plenty of charms and finished jewellery pieces.  It is aimed for girls aged 8 and over and would be a lovely way for them to make handmade gifts for their friends this Christmas.

Find out more at www.interplayuk.com/mystyle/shrink-design-jewellery.

Design and Make Festival Jewellery

Summer's festival season is still fresh in our thoughts, so when Kizzy received the Festival Jewellery craft kit from Interplay, she was happy to get creative with it!  The kit contains everything needed to make nine festival themed pieces of jewellery and teaches basic skills that can be used to make bracelets, necklaces and earrings.

The kit contains faux leather cords, coloured cords, feathers, beads, clam shell clasps, charms, jump rings, clasps, ear hooks and a bracelet maker wheel.  It also includes a 16 page instruction booklet.

Thr bracelet maker wheel makes the plaiting and braiding of the cord to make the bracelets really easy.  The instructions are very clear and the materials create a professional looking piece of jewellery.

Kizzy was very pleased with her pink faux leather plaited bracelet.

The necklaces are made my attaching clasps onto a length of cord and then attaching feathers and beads using the jump rings.  Kizzy did encounter a problem in that no matter how hard she tried, she could not thread the little plastic beads onto the cord threads, but other than that, she found it easy to follow the instructions and attach the clasps and feathers to make a pretty necklace.

The contents of the kit allow a child to make a selection of pieces and also gives scope for them to get creative and add their own twist to the techniques that they have learned.  The recommended age is 8 + although some of the fiddlier bits may require a grown-up's help.

Festival Jewellery costs £9.99

You can find out more at www.interplayuk.com/mystyle/festival-jewellery

Bracelet Making Craft Sets - MyStyle Craft Super Loop Bands and 4M Cool Colour Wristlets

MyStyle Craft Design & Make Super Loop Bands

Elastic band bracelets are all the rage at Kizzy's primary school.  So much so that the children have been banned from wearing them!  But that does not deter the girls who sit and weave their own rubber band bracelets at lunchtime and wear them hidden up the sleeves of their school sweatshirts.

Needless to say, Kizzy was very excited to test out this craft set which contains enough silicone bands and S-Loops to make five colourful bracelets.  The bands came in a variety of colours and are really thick and strong so there was no breakage. 

The process is very easy.  You thread a band through lengthways, line up to two end loops and thread the next band through those loops and so on.  The fully illustrated instruction booklet takes you through what to do step by step. The bracelets take shape very quickly, with an attractive pattern forming and the end result is really good and very wearable.  Kizzy was able to work independently and enjoyed making the bracelets.  You can dismantle the bracelets and re-use the bands if necessary.

Overall, we were really impressed by this set for it's simplicity, the strength and quality of the bands and the really nice end result.

Priced at £9.99 this is a well priced craft set that children will really enjoy.  A lovely activity for the kids to do independently to make bracelets for sharing and wearing.

For more information: http://www.interplayuk.com/mystyle/super-loop-bands

4M Cool Colour Wristlets

This set makes four brightly coloured wristlets which incorporate a chain, a proper clasp and a charm.  It contains everything needed except for scissors, a ruler and sticky tape.

As you may expect with a more involved piece of jewellery, the process is a bit more complicated.  It involves attaching a length of the plastic thread to the chain and  making a loop secured with tape.  The remainder of the plastic thread is then knotted onto this loop, which was a bit fiddly.  In fact we had to get Dad in to help because the instructions were a bit too complicated for me and Kizzy!  Ian's years as a boy scout, learning to tie knots, definitely came in handy and he was able to help make the bracelet.  Once the thread was tied off, a metal ring, charm and clasp had to be attached to the end of the chain.  It's not easy opening a metal ring and then closing it securely using just your fingers, so again Dad came to the rescue.

The end result looked quite good but the knotted section was quite rigid (maybe Ian's man fingers tied the knots too tightly) but I'm sure it will give over time.  Once on the wrist it looked quite professional looking with the clasp and charm, and the intricately knotted section looked impressive.

Overall, we liked the finished wristlet but found the process a bit tricky.  Some adult help was definitely required.  At £9.95 this set makes four of the bracelets which is good value.  I'm sure with practice the technique would become easier and the end result even better. 

For more information:  http://www.greatgizmos.co.uk/cool-colour-wristlets-making-kit.html

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Both of these craft sets would make a great gift idea for girls aged 8 and over.  

Magic Nail Laboratory Review

Kizzy is very much into fashion and make-up, but also loves science and making things, so the Wild Science Magic Nail Laboratory from Interplay ticked all her boxes.  Wild Science kits treat girls with the respect they deserve, recognising their intelligence alongside their looks.  Girls can learn how to make their own cosmetics, as well finding out fun facts, professional tips, learn about keeping healthy and the science behind cosmetology.  Kizzy loves the formula for fun, learning and looking good.

The Magic Nail Laboratory includes a studio for housing all the ingredients and accessories needed to create some fabulous special nail effects including colour change and glow in the dark looks.

The set includes a nail file and buffer and gives instructions on how to manicure your nails ready for painting. There is also a toe separator so the feet are not neglected and can enjoy a pedicure and nail polish too.

The base for the nail varnishes is a white liquid that dries clear (it's a bit like PVA glue so it isn't harsh and can be peeled off without the need for spirit based nail varnish remover making it more gentle for younger children to use).  To this base you can add pigments or shimmer powder made from Mica flakes to make your own nail varnish.  The set also includes nail art stickers which use photochromic pigments which means they change colour in sunlight, and glow in the dark stickers.  Lots of great looks can be created and it is fun to mix the products and pour them into the fancy bottles.

Kizzy and big sister Ella had some fun making up the nail varnish and trying out the special effect stickers. Kizzy was very impressed with the glow in the dark ones which are a lot of fun and work really well.  Freddy got in on the act and had some glow in the dark skulls applied to his toe nails!   Kizzy really enjoyed being a cosmetologist and learned a lot about keeping her nails healthy and manicured. The instruction booklet was very informative and clearly illustrated giving a step by step guide alongside lots of facts and tips.  

As Kizzy is not allowed to wear nail varnish to school, she needed to remove it on Sunday night.  I was very impressed with how easily it peeled off in the shower, and even more impressed that it left her nails feeling smooth and well conditioned as the products are not at all harsh on the skin.

The kit is recommended for children aged 10 and over.  Kizzy was able to work independently and needed no adult help to make the products.  Younger children would need assistance in measuring and pouring and using the pigments as they can stain.  It is great that Wild Science go beyond the standard make-up sets that are available on the market.  They add something extra to the mix, focusing on the science and creation of the products rather than just the end result.

The Magic Nails Laboratory is £12.99 RRP.  Find out more here: http://www.interplayuk.com/wild-science-girls/magic-nail-laboratory

Wild Science Hyperlauncher Rocket Ball Factory

If you have kids who enjoy playing the mad professor and like to conduct fun experiements, the Wild Science range from Interplay will be perfect presents for them to pop on to their Christmas wishlists!

We received the Hyperlauncher Rocket Ball Factory kit to try out.  My own little scientist Kizzy was very keen to test Newton's Laws of Motion using the super elastic collision balls, which you can make using the components of the kit.

Using coloured polymer granules and snap together moulds, you can make four differently sized balls.  It is a little bit messy so it is advisable to work using an old teaspoon to fill the moulds and an old plate to catch the spills.  Kizzy worked next to the sink as having easy access to water was handy.

The Wild Science Kit supports the Science curriculum so children learn as they play and discover the properties of matter, cause and effect and energy transference.

The stack of balls sits on a rod ready for some serious experimentation.  There are suggestions for tests and ideas for further challenges.

As with all Wild Science kits the instruction leaflet is clear and informative with full colour illustrations.  Safety information is included and the kit comes with a pair of Safety Goggles to protect the eyes and make kids feel like a real scientist!

Once the balls are ready, they can be dropped vertically onto a hard smooth floor.  What happens is quite unexpected!!!

It was lots of fun to make the balls and Kizzy enjoyed bouncy them around ably assisted by Freddy.  The glow in the dark polymer was very effective.  The balls do need to be kept in a plastic bag or they dry out.  

Kizzy was able to follow the instructions but some of the steps were a bit tricky and needed a little adult assistance.

The Hyperlauncher Rocket Ball factory costs £12.99.  Check out wildscience.net for more challenges, ideas, product information and fun!