Galt always impress me with their toys that really get the girls excited about jumping in being creative and inventive. They offer comprehensive kits with child-friendly step-by-step instructions that even 6-year-old Juliette can follow with no problem. A little while ago, we reviewed their Make Your Own Perfume Kit (here), which they were very proud to use to create me a unique fragrance for Mothers' Day completely by themselves, and this time we discovered the Fab Fairies kit that they kindly sent us to review.
We unpacked the kit and made two piles, one for each of the fairies. The kit makes two fairies which is absolutely perfect for us as 9-year-old Sophie and 6-year-old Juliette could work together with no squabbling over who would get to keep the finished doll. I thought they would both want to make the pink fairy but Juliette surprised me by going for the green one, because she liked the jewels in the hair. Phew, diplomatic crisis averted !
The instructions are separate for each doll but use many of the same images so there is a common base of things you can get the kids doing simultaneously. It's all based on overlapping, curling and gluing different coloured pieces of string, so the first thing to do is lay them all out in size and colour order - great maths skills practice already !
The hands, feet, hair and bottom of the dresses are made by unravelling and fraying the ends of the pieces of string which is a bit fiddly so I had to help the girls out. It's also quite difficult to get the string loops of the dresses to stay together with the glue so arm yourself with patience - you'll end up holding it while it dries because the kids will inevitably get bored and wander off !
The other fiddly bit is getting the heads to stay on as they are relatively heavy compared to the bodies so they have a tendency to fall off before the glue dries. Once it's all dry, they're impressively resistant and solid though and even survived being dropped on the floor !
The finished fairies are very pretty, especially as they have sparkly "diamonds" that no little girl could resist, and the girls were very proud of their creations, which now have pride of place on the shelves in their bedrooms. It's a great way of whiling away a wet afternoon and is also fabulous for doing arts and crafts in a contained environment with few crafting materials available, maybe at the grandparents' or the childminder's house, as everything is included in the box and it creates no mess at all (except sticky fingers and maybe a few blobs of glue - prepare a big sheet of stiff cardboard or a plastic mat to put down gluey bits of string as they dry).
Galt have loads of other crafty kits available on their website so be sure to check them out. The prices are very reasonable too so they make great stocking fillers.
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £4.99
for more information : http://www.galttoys.com/index.cfm/Fab%20Fairies/1002/productid/1003673
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This looks like a great kit for little girls. Shame mine's too young at the moment. I love kits with everything in though - no more scrabbling around trying to find bits in the cupboard, and like you say you can take the kit away on hols or to grandparents. Great review x
ReplyDelete@missielizzieb
What a lovely review. This would be perfect for my god-daughter and her Mum would probably thank me for having all the bits in one place!
ReplyDeleteFairies are gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteI love the look of these perfect for my niece's b'day.
ReplyDeleteHave fun, if you end up buying one :)
ReplyDeleteI was looking for something to buy for my cousins little girl and this would be perfect
ReplyDeletelook great fun!
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