Preschool subscription smack down

I wasn't too impressed with day 1 of our "Berry Best Preschool" subscription.  I haven't looked ahead at all so I can only judge day by day....and today, day 2, was another bust.

It starts out so exciting, two activities organized into a little pouch with a theme...

Unfortunately,  the activities are just kinda dumb. The instructions say to have the adults cut out all the pieces - now I'm understanding why they sell a "pre cut" set for more $$$. I suppose I could try to have TC cut her own,  but scissors haven't gone well so far and I'm spooked. The learning activity was a worksheet - count the items and glue the number in the box. The cutting and gluing felt like unnecessary complications to make it a bigger activity. ..but it wasn't real educational or much fun. The artwork so far looks just like the mimeographed worksheets of my youth, these are NOT computer assisted I guess. Maybe that's whimsical.  It feels kinda slipshod.

Activity #2, the craft, was embellishing a snowy owl. Worksheet, 3 feathers, and a stick + feet to cut out and paste on. Eh. Meh. 

I felt like again this was more work for me than my preschooler, didn't occupy much time, and was very low quality.  It's not refrigerator gallery work. It came with just a couple facts about owls,  not enough to teach anything from, so I can't even really give it credit for being more educational. Carefree Crafts includes a set of facts about the month that are much more interesting and we'll curated.

and speaking of Carefree Crafts, they are KILLING IT this month. So much win. We're gonna do everything the first week and then be sad to wait for more. 

First up we stuffed a little teddy bear!  We were sent a bear "skin", fiberfill, and a little heart to stuff inside (like at build-a-bear workshop).  That went pretty smooth, then we didn't even have to stitch her up, it was velcro! Finally there was a little scrap of felt and a pattern to cut a vest, I did that and let TC color on it with markers for some additional mileage out of this craft. Her name is Pinky and she was a a hit:

2nd craft was to decorate a ladybug mailbox for Valentines.  This is exactly what I prefer in crafts right now for TC - stickers she can independently take the backing off (small motor skills + phenomenal practice with patience) nothing messy, no scissors or glue - and again TC loved it. Neither of these are projects we will keep forever but they will be played with some and ready to go once next month's projects come. 

If you are keeping track, Carefree Crafts is winning by a mile. I should be rationing the projects better since we only get 1-1.5 per week, but they are WAY more fun and interesting so far than the 6 per week we are doing with BBP. 

My Ipsy Glam Bag and Bijoux Box should arrive mid month, so we are just starting our subscription box odyssey.  Gotta do something to pass this long crazy winter! 

Berry Best Preschool Subscription + Other Crafting Meltdowns...

We had an utter craft-tastrophe this morning with at least a dozen mega meltdowns and a river of snot and tears, all caused by various craft frustration. Egads. It actually started with milk on the cheerios (I want it! No I don't! Now it's there! World is ending!) Three year olds are far from sensible (or maybe it's just mine who thinks the world is ending if I ask her to slow down, pause, or listen at any point), but this was a bit over the top. Scissors, stickers, coloring - it all just fueled the fire. Ugh.

Now that we've all calmed down (chocolate milk for her, Dr. Pepper for me, chocolate chunk cookies for all), here's a look back:

We're trying out a new monthly subscription sorta like our crafting one, this is from Berry Best Preschool and includes art + curriculum, supposedly a learning activity and a craft for each day. We ordered the 3 day a week subscription for February, and started it today. The "learning activity" was a worksheet to trace and practice making #9s. Sounds easy enough, and I'm pretty sure they do similar things at TC's daycare, so I didn't think twice.

Cue first meltdown.

I'm not sure what I did wrong here, but TC didn't want to follow directions, listen to directions, or allow me to demonstrate. It pushed her well over the edge into toddler tantrum territory. Not awesome. Also, she's terrible at making #9s, so I feel like I kinda failed too. Hmmm....

The "craft activity" was much more benign and one of the few things we accomplished today without tears (ahh, parenting....). It was a "puppet" to celebrate groundhog's day (which was yesterday, so kinda odd to make it today...). The package contained the groundhog printed on brown paper, and a paper bag. The instructions said to pre-cut the head and body of the groundhog, and allow kids to affix the pieces to the paper bag. I used some leftover glue dots (which I still hate, but were easier to use/cleaner than actual glue) and it didn't really feel like TC did much for this. Also, here's what it looked like:

Um....isn't the point of a puppet that the MOUTH looks like it is moving? this "puppet" splits head from body...WHY WOULD WE WANT TO DO THAT?!?!?! It makes no sense, and wasn't real fun to put together.

So, it's pretty early to judge this subscription, but day 1 was kind of a bust. I would guess we'll have a lot more tracing worksheets for the "learning activity" and I'm okay with that since it is a good thing to learn, but we'll have to come to a better working relationship with them (and each other). As for the crafts...very dubious so far. This one was sorta a dumb product AND not real kid-involved to make, so I give it pretty low marks.

Fingers crossed it gets better!

Carefree Crafts Subscription Review

 My first subscription box came! Actually, it was a bubble mailer, but still. Very exciting. And very quick!  I'm impressed by the turn around time, as the other boxes I subscribed to I had to wait for February. Carefree Crafts was able to get me on board right away!

The package included a color page showing all of the projects, the theme, and some trivia applying to the theme at the bottom. This month it's "Winter Wonderland," which works for me. There are 6 projects in this package with a variety of mediums - one is lacing, one is a little figure to assemble, one is painting, etc.

Inside the package are all of the supplies needed to make each of the projects, separated into packages, so you can just pull out the bag for what you are going to make and not have to sort it yourself  (all time saving is good when toddlers are involved!)

We decided to start with a "snowman coaster." Apparently to put beverages on. So...I'd never use this as a coaster, but The Cupcake is unconcerned with such concepts as "practicality," so "Frosty" was quite exciting for her. This seemed like the simplest project, and we've been doing a lot of foam sticker work lately, so I figured we could handle it. We did...but it wasn't quite as easy as I had hoped. It relied heavily on Glue Dots, which I have to believe are made of pure evil. I generally can't get them off their backing without significant trouble, and I have some crafting experience, so I don't know anyone who would think a toddler could do it. That meant I had to place all the glue dots and just let TC assemble, which was okay, but neither of us really had the patience for it. But you wouldn't know it by the end:

I asked her what we should name him, and she replied "FROSTY" in an exasperated tone, it definitely would have been followed by "Duh, mom!" If she knew the word "Duh!" :) 

Later that evening TC begged for another "cwaft!" so we tried the "stained glass" mitten. It was an acetate sheet that you covered with glue, then tissue paper squares, and a foam border. When finished it is a mitten shaped sun catcher. It was one of the messier projects, so I should have known not to try it at the END of the day when I was already tired, but the glue was the least of the problems. The tissue paper tiles had to be separated from a stack, and the instructions warned that there were just enough to cover the project, so after my hands were covered in glue I spent awkward and tense minutes trying to separate thin layers. It turned out that there were plenty of tissues so I didn't need to be so precise, but still...after the glue dots, this experience left me wondering if these boxes were for me.

But someone is a big fan so far. 

We still have 4 projects left, and so far some positives are that the kits are all inclusive, curated around a theme, and sized for just one kid. A lot of the projects seem to come from Oriental Trading Co, which always has dubious quality, but it is somewhat of a plus to be able to make just ONE of something, rather than ordering at least a dozen through OTC. There are a lot more glue dots included...but I'm wondering if I could just switch those out for double sided tape or something. I haven't yet decided if the projects are a great age fit - TC seems very interested, but she also want's to jump right in and these crafts so far have required patience and sequencing, which can add stress to a messy situation. The foam stickers are way easier. 

I got a great deal on the first box with a coupon code, but I can't decide yet if this is worth a monthly renewal. If I took the same amount of $$ to the craft store, I'm not sure I could get 6 different projects (since usually things come in packages or fancy kits), and I do appreciate not having to think about the projects and just having them on hand, having the experience and displaying things for a while but not feeling like we need to save them forever, and having TC get excited about it. Oh, and getting mail. I totally love getting mail. But man, I hate glue dots :) 

Stay tuned for more! 

Subscriptions!

I did it! I took the plunge! I'm signed up for 3 subscription boxes and I can't wait to try them out!

http://yourbijouxbox.com/ - Jewelry! This was the first one I decided on, but I had browser problems signing up - I emailed the contact and received an immediate personal/human response that they were looking into it and apologized, and I got an update when they felt they had the problem fixed. When I still couldn't get my order to go through I asked if I could just do it over the phone, and promptly was allowed to, with excellent, friendly customer service (and anyone who knows me knows I NEVER get good customer service! So it was quite the pleasure!). I started with a 6 month subscription since this was my big splurgey birthday present. Should start in February, and I can't wait!

http://www.carefreecrafts.com/ - Kid friendly craft kits! I did this one on a month-by-month basis and used a coupon code for 40% off the first month so I can try it out with out too much commitment. TC actually loves to do messy crafts like painting and foam stickers (I call those messy because of the million tiny pieces of paper backing it leaves scattered across the house), it's me who runs out of patience (because guess who cleans it up?!?!?) but I resolved to work on my attitude towards such things this year, so we'll try it out. Tentatively :) I like that this is a kid thing, but not a "investment" kid thing like toys and clothes - we can have the experience, show it off for a while, and then get rid of the projects without adding too much long lasting chaos (or reselling, or donating, etc).  The subscription code I used was SAVE40, not sure how long it is valid. This subscription could start in just a week or two, which would be GREAT! UPDATE: FIRST SHIPMENT ALREADY ARRIVED!

http://www.ipsy.com/ - MAKEUP! I know, this is so not my usual style, but maybe I'm kind of tired of my (lack of) usual style? This is one of the lowest cost subscriptions at $10 a month, and you get a makeup bag (GLAM BAG) with around 5 products. The site was a little confusing - at first I just clicked directly on the glambag subscription and was put on a waiting list, but if you become a "member" of the site first, then agree to share on facebook, they'll expedite you off the waitlist immediately, so I'm signed up to get the February shipment. And then I just deleted the facebook share right after. Supposedly your selection of products is curated towards your answers to the style profile quiz, but since I have zero makeup skills or personal style, I just checked that I was interested in all the boxes. The only weird question was about hair where you only got to choose from a few weird options like frizzy, needs volume, curly, or a few others that didn't apply to me. So we'll see what I get!