Christmas is fast approaching yet again and you may be stuck for present ideas for some people in your life. If that’s the case, check out these great craft kit present ideas with honest reviews from our Freshered writers. Inspiration may be just a few paragraphs away!
Make Your Own Tug Toy – £20 from Kikkerland
If you were a fan of making scoobies from colourful plastic strands back in the early 2000s, and also happen to have a dog, this might just be the perfect craft for you. Kobe’s ‘Make Your Own Tug Toy’ was a chilled way of passing an afternoon, while also making a toy that my dog was more than happy with.
On opening the box, I was impressed by the vibrant colours of the materials. The craft set comes with four different coloured strips of felt, a tennis ball with holes cut at opposite sides, and instructions. Its simplicity appears straightforward but was perhaps a little too minimal.
In a nutshell, the instruction sheet provided lacked clarity. Step-by-step instructions were visible on the card, but they were purely in image form, which was confusing at first. Once I had wrapped my head around the instructions, making the toy was easy and enjoyable, but some written guidance would have definitely helped alongside the pictures.
Although initially I was sceptical of how durable the toy would be, when it was finished I was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked and how well it has faired against other toys that my medium-sized dog has successfully pulled to pieces. I had predicted that the felt strands might unravel (be sure to make the knots and braids tight), or the tennis ball might break but, after two weeks of play, the toy isn’t really showing signs of wear.
Soft, a good size and brilliantly colourful; dogs can tug, shake, or play fetch with this indoors without any danger of breaking anything. Outdoor play may not be ideal however, because the felt would pick up any rain, mud, or water. Yet overall, with only the two downsides being the instructions and the toy being more suited for the indoors, there is much to wag a tail at.
Fun, easy, mess free, and loved by my dog, I would recommend this unique product, especially as a gift. And as an added bonus, a portion of the proceeds from the sales are donated to the International Street Dog Foundation.
See also: Best Christmas Jumpers And T-Shirts 2022
Decorate Your Own Mug Kit – £19.99 from Prezzybox
This mug painting set is the perfect present for someone who loves arts and crafts this Christmas. It comes in an adorable pink-patterned box, and after opening the kit, you are met with a neatly packed painting set.
The mug painting set comes with a plain white mug, two paintbrushes, and three pots of paint. Although you only get red, yellow, and blue, you can mix them up to produce a whole range of colours for your mug (e.g. yellow and blue make green, and red and blue make purple). You also get a small instruction manual which comes with three example designs you can use for inspiration.
Usually, in ceramic painting sets, the pots of paint are small, but in this one, you get a large volume of paint to work with. In fact, I didn’t even end up using half of each colour, so there are endless possibilities of what you could paint on your mug as you aren’t restricted by the amount of paint.
The paint was applied onto the mug very easily, although you do need to do at least two or three coats of each colour to get even coverage. While it can be tempting to apply a thick layer of paint in the hopes that will be enough, with this set I would advise you to apply several thin layers to prevent the paint from appearing uneven and lumpy.
I opted for a strawberry design and found that, luckily, when I messed up the stems (which happened embarrassingly often whilst painting) I could wipe it away with little to no mess and start again.
If you are doing a design which includes painting two different colours on top of each other, wait for the base layer to dry first. I was very impressed with how quickly the paint dried, so you should only find yourself waiting about a minute or two. The paint doesn’t run, but make sure not to wet your paintbrush before applying the paint, as this will thin it out and cause the colours to run into each other.
When you’re all done, pop it in the oven to set the design, and there you have it!
Handmade Banner Kit – £22.50 from Jarrold
This fun craft kit comes with easy and simple instructions on how to make your own banner and customise it however you want. The kit comes with everything you might need! The banner (the main thing), ink and paintbrush as well as tracing and carbon paper.
All in all, what else could you need that the craft kit doesn’t come with? Not much. Just your creativity. Using the letter template provided, start thinking of what your banner will say. The best thing: it can say whatever you want. Be brave, be happy, rock and roll. The choice is yours.
Using this kit will save you the hassle of getting all the materials and makes the experience of creating the banner a lot easier!
If you wish, you can add even more customisation to the banner! The great thing is you are the master of this one. Draw anything you want; write anything you want. You can never guess how relaxing painting is. What better to paint on something that you can use as decoration later on!
Crafters Image Transfer Tote Bag – £25 from Kikkerland
Kikkerland’s Crafters ‘Image Transfer Tote Bag’ kit came in a beautiful brown box adorned with printed terracotta leaves. Upon opening it, I was met with a tote bag, sheets of printed black flower designs, a small pot of essential oil, and a wooden scraper tool.
I was impressed by the quality of the tote bag, it was sturdy and thick, but unfortunately, the kit itself fell short of the mark. The premise was simple: you cut out the flowers you wanted to put on your bag (or, you could even print out your own designs and follow the same steps), place them face down on the fabric, paint over the paper with essential oil, wait two minutes, then scrap over the bits of paper with the wooden tool. The image would transfer onto the tote bag, and voila!
However, my first thought was that the entire process was very pernickety. The paper wouldn’t lie flat, and as soon as you would begin to paint on the oil it would move slightly on the tote bag, thus spreading the black ink around. Then, when it was time to use the scraper, no matter how careful I was, the paper would move whilst I was scraping down. After a few attempts, I managed to finally get a flower to transfer. However, the lines were blurry and the image was very faint, despite my following the instructions closely.
Another thing to know about this kit is that the essential oil provided had a very strong scent, that was incredibly difficult to get off your hands. Given that you have to hold the paper down on the fabric to stop it from moving as much when you want the image to transfer, it is impossible to not get the oil on your fingers.
While the idea of this kit is a great one, the tote bag itself is good quality, and the images provided are lovely, the application process is difficult and somewhat flawed. If you are patient with steady hands, then maybe you’ll have better luck.
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