ALEX Toys My Giant Busy Box Craft Kit Kids Art and Craft Activity

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!

I have bought two of these sets. There are many great parts to this with many possible projects allowing for a lot of creativity and lots of fun! There are no set instructions on how to make various projects, as it is an open-ended kit. So, for younger children it helps to have an adult help the child at least make the initial choice of what they will be creating that day so they don't, for example, glue all the animal legs together. Older children can manage this on their own. This kit would also be perfect for a grandparent to have for many grandchildren to use over multiple visits, or for a family to keep on hand as a single craft kit or to combine with other items found around the house. We added a paper tube one day to make the horse project 3-D. Children love this kit!

My 3 year old daughter got this as a Christmas gift and it was the perfect alternative to TV during the long winter months (I HATE when she watches TV! There are so many other fun things to do!). My daughter's first activities were the tissue paper art -- a fish and a car -- and she LOVED them. From then on she demanded to do more projects. She thoroughly enjoyed all the paper bag puppets and even liked playing with the clay and inserting the arms, legs and heads of animals (though I personally thought this was the most boring part of the box). My mother-in-law also did a few projects with my daughter. FYI -- my mother-in-law isn't super creative and struggled with the lack of instructions, but my daughter still had a blast. The projects come individually wrapped for the most part, although some pieces are free-floating and not labeled. The instructions are not as clear as I would like them, and typically I found myself looking for the project on the box and then figuring it out from there. None of this phased my daughter. She was grabbing things left and right and using her own creativity to design her projects (which may be the point of not having detailed instructions!). I also agree with a previous reviewer about what I'd change: The box comes with one instruction sheet that shows some of the projects, and not all of the projects are the exact ones that are pictured on the box. All in all I will probably be buying another kit from Alex because it was such a hit with my daughter.

I spent a long time figuring out what to buy my children for Christmas, and of all the art projects, this was the best. We tried a bunch of Alex arts and crafts, including the color-an-umbrella, color-a-toy, spirograph, spin-art, etc. While the Spin-art was definitely the coolest, my kids gave this one a better rating overall because it was easy, there was more variety, and they could do it anywhere in the house (i.e. no paint). I thought it was nice that they could also do something all together: no need to take turns or buy multiple copies for each. It was larger than I thought and just one box contributes a lot. Even my slightly older children liked it. I was a little surprised because many reviewers recommended this for toddlers and preschoolers and I was trying it out on my six year old. But my 8 and 9 year old boys dove right in too. And of course my littlest one wanted in too. You just plunk it down and there are 16 crafts in it, so there is enough for a whole morning with several children. (Or quite awhile with just one child.) Everything from just sticking stickers on a picture to paper bag puppets. Nothing fancy, but I really appreciated how all the crafts worked and looked like the ones on the box. No crazy parental involvement to get tricky parts right, or waiting several hours while glue dried, or whatever. It even included a big glue stick so you wouldn't run out halfway. Now the directions are not so great... just a couple visuals, so a parent would have to help a preschooler. And our box seemed to include only directions for 5 of the crafts, so my kids had to look at the pictures on the box for the others. But for an average kindergartner, that's probably not a problem. And the great part is that all the craft projects come in separated bags, so as long as your little excited one doesn't rip them all open at once and dump them out (which is incredibly tempting to do since there is so much stuff in there!), you are all set. It comes with several plastic bags with the special papers in them, four or five blobs of playdoh, stickers, a frame, and everything else required. As long as you have a pencil, you can take it with you to Grandma's or on a trip, or whatever. Like all art projects, the crafts aren't particularly durable, but they are very good quality materials. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but I was pleasantly surprised.

This Alex craft kit is great. There are lots of activities that will keep your child entertained. Our kit didn't include one activity shown on the box (butterfly tissue paper kit) so that did disappoint my 3 year old a bit since she really loves butterflies. However, it wasn't a huge let down as there was a star and a fish she could decorate with the tissue paper. Some reviewers complained that the kit didn't include many instructions. However I don't think this is such a big deal. It's a "craft" kit meant to stimulate creativity. It does offer some direction for the projects and you can find many ideas on the box. Personally, I like to let my daughter create based on her own imagination. So what if she wants to include feathers on a fish and buttons as eyes? :-) This is a great kit for rainy/snowy day activities. I love the fact that each project is individually packaged so you just remove one or two and put the rest away until next time. Younger children may need some help with the glue stick or removing stickers, so if you're looking for a project to keep them "out of your hair" this may not be it unless you have an older child to assist. If your child loves crafts and stickers, this is the box for them.

Update: I am changing my overall rating from a one star to three after using the Busy Box a few times. My grandson loves the projects. Original Review: First I must say, I am not an artsy-crafts person, but I wanted to find something I could do with my grandson on a rainy day and this box looked perfect: 16 fun and easy projects! NOT so! Maybe if you are artistically minded you could look at everything and figure it out, but I couldn't. It started out with my grandson finding the box and wanting to make the butterfly on the outside of the box. I didn't want to open the box, until I had sorted everything out in the box, but he was persistent so I said okay, only to find no butterfly cut-out included. There was a car and a flower. The directions showed the butterfly, so I ended up drawing a butterfly on a manilla folder, cutting it out, and following the directions from there. Success! Today, I decided to sort through everything, so that I would be ready for his return and our next project. This was not fun, or easy! I hoped for 16 individually wrapped projects, but realistically expected a bunch of supplies with directions for 16 different projects. Instead I found a one page sheet with picture directions for only 6 projects. Some of the projects are wrapped together, with other pieces found elsewhere in the box, and there are other supplies for which the purpose isn't clear. As I mentioned, the outside of the box doesn't match what's inside (fish and butterfly on box, were not inside). The directions assume you will be able to figure out how to do the different projects, based upon one project. For example, they show a cutout of a bird, next to a picture of some supplies and then a picture of the bird decorated, but there is also a pig, and a cow, and a sheep with no directions. The idea is great, but the packaging needs attention and a re-do! I would like to return it, but I used some of the supplies and my grandson will remember the box the next time he comes, so we will have fun with it as is.

If you like the Alex craft sets, then this one is really great. it includes sever sets worth of craft items ranging from gluing activities, sticker crafts, paper bag puppets. . . really a lot of things. I got this around the holidays last year for a great price, so I may be disposed to give a higher rating than someone who paid more. It is true that the directions are a little bit lacking, but the crafts themselves are pretty easy to understand and to do with a child. Most of the materials in the kit can't really go bad (except for the modeling dough, which is only part of the kit). The stuff is not really high quality, but I think the activities are designed to be a way to occupy your child's time and give them a good activity more than it is intended to produce the tyopes of craft items you keep forever. They are cute though, and my child loves the bag puppets. The cow is a trip, and we laugh at it once in a while when she jumps out and makes it moo at me.

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.

muy buena caja, trae muchas cosas y todo completo. muy sencillo de pegar. realmente podrás entretener a tus pequeños por muchas horas.

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! :)

I bought this for my 5 year old son in the winter because it was too cold to go outside (Winnipeg winters are awful!), and we were quickly running out of things to do. I discovered Alex Toys crafts and I instantly fell in love. I bought this Busy Box and it kept my son amused for HOURS. He loves crafts but this was the perfect solution and kept him so busy. He was so proud of his work after too. The instructions are awesome, very clear with no words, just pictures. My son was able to figure out how to make each craft with very minimal assistance from me. Highly recommend these crafts, definitely worth the price.

Trae varios proyectos cada uno en su bolsita y con su material. Adicional trae plastilinas, papel, pegamento, calcomanias, limpiapipas. Esta muy completo para hacer varios proyectos con los niños.

This kit is jammed packed of lots of stuff to keep your child busy. Every thing was inside the box besides the glue and crayons as advertised on the box. Besides that, the kit arrived at a reasonable time and my daughter had lots of fun, on my original order of 3 items I had assumed it was paid for but a week later I was checking my email and noticed that only 1 item was collected for not the other two, I then proceeded to order and pay for the items which included the Giant Busy box and was not very happy with the fact the item was way more then the first time I had ordered it. Besides all the I am at least happy my daughter enjoys and is kept busy with this giant busy box!