Shamballas were hugely popular last year - the Madhouse Mini-testers spent lots of their carefully saved pocket money buying more and more of the sparkly dangly bracelets and even at school, kids of both sexes and all ages came to class wearing them (and annoying me by clinking the balls on the tops of their desks every two minutes !). Well, they may not be such a huge craze any more but there are still quite a few people wearing them and Sophie's eyes absolutely lit up when we received a Shamballa Fire crafts kit from Interplay.
She made some space on the table and excitedly unpacked everything.
You get lots and lots of exciting little bits and bobs :
2 Silver shamballa beads
3 Royal blue shamballa beads
3 Baby blue shamballa beads
20 Imitation glass pearls
Plastic coated jewellery wire
8m of black cord
Jump rings
Clasp
Clamshell clasps
Ear hooks
Safety pin
Colour instruction booklet
Carefully following the instructions (luckily it has lots of pictures with the step-by-step guide !), we cut and laid out all the pieces of cord then started tying ourselves up in knots !
Within a few minutes, I'd confused myself (but I was multitasking so not really concentrating !) and delegated the task to visiting Madhouse Nanny !
Together they soon got to grips with it and started creating a very impressive looking woven bracelet. I would say that the 8-12 age range is slightly ambtitious though - even 11-year-old Sophie needed adult help to work it out, although she has said that now she knows what she's doing, it's actually quite simple.
The box contains enough supplies for you to make five pieces of jewellery (shamballa earrings, shamballa bracelet, 'bling' bracelet, shamballa necklace, sparkly pearl bracelet) and a handy plastic storage box for you to store all your odds and ends in while you create the projects. Sophie has already said that she will make it into a jewellery box once she's finished too.
Sophie has only finished one of the projects so far so I can only show you one finished creation but the others should also come out just like on the box. She's having great fun and this kit will be perfect for keeping her busy during the long summer holidays.
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £12.99
for more information : http://www.interplayuk.com/mystyle/shamballa-fire-jewellery
Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.
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Well done to Sophie, it looks really good. I think I might have to add one of these kits to my daughters Christmas stocking.
ReplyDeleteGreat review Cheryl! This would be great for my two girls for over the Summer! I like to buy in a few kits like these for rainy days - much better than console games or dvds - and the kids have something at the end of it!
ReplyDeleteWow I would have loved to do something like this when I was younger!! With love, Faye xx
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