ALEX ToysMy Giant Busy Box Craft Kit Kids Art and Craft Activity

Our fav way to spend quality kiddo-parent time! :) We love it so much we've been gifting Alex craft kids to everyone on their birthdays - and all kids have loved their sets! :)

Came on time & was as described. My friend's daughter was really excited about it and opened it right away to start playing with some of the crafts. I liked that most of the crafts required minimal adult intervention to give parents, especially single parents, a bit of a break while being a fun and educational experience for the child as well. Very happy with it!

I am a working mom with a very active 2.5 year old and a husband who travels >50% time. This means even though I consider myself creative, I appreciate the ability to whip out a pre-packaged craft project that engages my little one without a) pre-planning/looking up ideas online; b) taking her to buy supplies (in small quantities) for similar projects; c) any consideration of weather or time of the day. Sure, there will be parents out there who take a look at the content and think it's nothing special. Well, I have two comments: 1) many of us wouldn't consider most activities for a 2-3 year old special but they are nevertheless fun and age-appropriate. 2) When my brain is fried from work but I'd rather not park my kid in front of the TV so that I can decompress, this is a fun way to spend time with my little one.Price wise, I consider Amazon's price reasonable. I probably would have to spend more if I gather the supplies myself and would have the hassle of dealing with all the leftovers.Personal reasons and pricing aside, I am actually quite impressed with the quality of the stuff inside. The quantity for each project is either good or on the generous side. Everything is bright/colorful and printed on quality paper. The projects create surprisingly little or no mess. All age appropriate -- some clearly require a longer attention span than my kid has or greater dexterity. That's ok; I help her with some stuff or let her finish the project in a couple of sittings. I can also try to challenge her, making up related stories/asking her decoration preferences while we do these projects and encourage her to keep at it a little longer to expand her attention span. These projects would work best for 2.5-4 year olds. I like the individual packaging for most of the projects. That way, I can efficiently take one out at a time w/o letting my kid sees the rest and get distracted.There are only two things that I would change: the box came with just one instruction sheet that shows how some of the projects are put together. For those of us who like reading instruction manuals, the only way to get an idea of what the final product look like are the images on the big box. Like I said, my kid gets distracted and wants whatever she sees, so I would have preferred not to have the box in front of her (albeit with all the content removed) while we do a project. Second, I noticed that I did not get one of the projects pictured on the box but something else of the same type of activity. That's kind of a disappointment because I really like the fish tissue art instead of a star tissue art; plus, I believe in you-buy-what-you-see. I don't know how frequently Alex products make substitutions like this.This was a worthwhile investment. I love seeing my kid getting so excited during and after finishing a project. So proud and eager to hang up her latest masterwork!

My son absolutely loves hear crafts and they are so easy! Great for snow or rainy days. He is now 4 and we still do crafts out of this box. Each craft keeps him busy for about 30 mins and he just loves it

I really love this company's boxed crafts, very fun and easy for the kids to do on their own. However after throwing out half the box from previous purchases, I stopped buying them. Why did I throw them out? Because you had to dig through all of the millions of pieces to complete a project. Some of the cut outs were on one sheet and after tearing through half, the other half of the sheet it thrashed. To do one project took almost 30 minutes of digging to find all the pieces needed. However, with winter break coming up and Amazons amazing half of deal, I went ahead and bought this kit.Wow!! So impressed. What an improvement. I was so happy to see that all the projects were so nicely separated into its own sleeves!! It also came with a colorful instructional sheet that lets us know whic sleeve to pull ad what additional pieces we need to pull from the separate box of accessories like the glue, ad what not. My just tuned four year old didn't have any problems doing the frog puppet this morning and my newly turned 2 year old finished the pizza project without my help. I wish I knew of their new packaging before the deal because I would have bought a few more as gifts. Oh well.Even though I got it for half price, I definitely think its worth the full price. It comes out to about $2 a project and though some may not seem worth $2 in materials, if you consider the fact that they are pre-cut and ready to go, it is worth every penny.