Crazy Crafts Case

Almost Endless Art Possibilities

I stumbled upon this big box of craft supplies with my son during a shopping trip for something completely unrelated. We found it on the back shelves hidden in the pet department for $8, and I did the math. I don’t think I could buy even a fraction of these thousand supplies for that price, so we came home with it.

My husband loved the deal so much that he went back that night and bought five more, one per child plus two extras. My kids played with the original box on their own for over an hour that first day and I couldn’t have been happier. It came with glue, scissors, string, and sticky bits so they didn’t need much help or even any other supplies from me.

The paper packaging on the outside has loads of images of things you can make. If you want directions, though, don’t count on getting any. The case doesn’t include any other paperwork hidden inside, so what you see is what you get.

It comes in a sturdy patterned box that opens to reveal supplies sorted into compartments. Inside, you’ll find pipe cleaners in both solid and striped colors, even longer fluffier pipe cleaners in bright colors, sequins, sparkles with sticky adhesive, googly eyeballs, wooden sticks in bright colors, more than a dozen colors of felt rectangles, glue, string in various shades, shorter shiny pipe cleaners (about half the length of regular ones) in both bright and metallic colors, wooden beads in multiple shapes and colors, translucent plastic beads, circular wooden discs, and three different sections of pom poms: bright colors, mixed colors, and metallic ones in various sizes. It even includes several needles.

We don’t have any of this stuff in our extremely excessive art supply stash except pipe cleaners, so my kids went nuts. They manufactured a crap load of stuff. Then they sold it to me. Once they’d exhausted my $1.81 budget, they relocated to the sidewalk, where they started hawking their wares to innocent passersby. They even got their buddies in on the creative process so they’d have more stuff to sell. All because of one admittedly impressive craft box.

I even gave one to my sister as a gift, and we have at least one more that will make another  great gift. While it definitely comes full of choking hazards, even the youngest kids can wrap pipe cleaners around the wooden posts or stick the shiny jewels onto felt, yet this box of goodies strongly appeals to both my older kids and their friends as well. I’m not sure ours will last until a rainy day (good thing we have three more for backups, huh?) but I can imagine it would be great for that as well, or for anyone stuck at home with other siblings while younger kids nap. While I may not pay the full $30 price tag for this box, now that I know how awesome it is, I’d be tempted. I just wouldn’t buy five.