Target has an Art & Craft Kit Subscription for Kids, bringing a different creative activity to your doorstep each month for $14.99.
You'll notice this is packaged very simply. It looks like any other online order from Target.
My Subscription Addiction paid for this box. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
About the Target Arts & Crafts Kit Subscription for Kids
The Subscription Box: Target Art & Craft Kit Subscription for Kids
The Cost: $14.99
Good to know: You do save 5% by subscribing, making the true cost $14.25. Make sure to select the subscribe option when you sign up. You can also save an extra 5% if you use your Target RedCard.
The Products: A different crafting activity each month. Ranging from coloring kits to DIY accessories, the variety will spark kids' imagination and keep them excited to see what they will create next! Instructions are provided when necessary. For ages 6-10.
Target Arts & Crafts Box: Light Up Heart Marquee February 2018 Kit
Light Up Heart Marquee by Creativity for Kids - Retail Value $14.99
This month's project combines coloring, glitter glue, and construction components to create a custom light-up sign! It's not my personal style (and wouldn't have been even if I were still a 10-year-old kid) but I did initially think it was pretty cute, and I'm sure there are plenty of young creative kids who would really love this idea.
The kit comes with everything you need except the 2 AA batteries required for it to light up, and anything you might need for hanging/display:
The heart is a pretty generous size– it's hard to tell in these photos, but the heart shape is 15" by 14".
The instructions for this project are pretty thorough and take you through step by step everything you'll need to in order to assemble your craft.
The back even includes a little pronunciation guide for the word "love" in several different languages!
Here's the biggest component: the heart shape itself. It comes with an illustrative floral pattern ready for you to fill in!
I particularly love the little leafy shapes, myself.
The heart is a piece of foam-core, so it's pretty sturdy overall.
Tons of opportunity to play with color and pattern here!
The felt tip markers included definitely skew a bit neon! My marker collection has really grown since I started reviewing this box. 😉
The first step in the project is, of course, to color in the pattern on the big heart piece however your heart desires. I kept mine relatively simple and focused on the greenery, with little pops of color elsewhere.
Once you're done with the color, you can add a little more flair in the form of rhinestone stickers! I used these mostly to add a little shine to the center of some of the flower shapes.
After getting a whole set of glitter glue last month, I thought it was pretty funny to see yet another one in this kit! We also received some regular white glue to help with assembly.
The instructions have you add even more glittery-ness to your design using the glitter glue. I used mine sparingly, but it was cool that it added a bit more of a 3D element. Since the glue is clear with a sort of white/holographic glitter, you could still see some of the color shining through it, too.
There are also edging strips included, which have "love" in various languages as well as similar floral designs. The next step (once your glitter glue dries) is to attach these strips around the edge of your heart.
Here's where I made my first snafu. These edgings have an adhesive on the little tabs that you expose by peeling a sticker off, which makes them pretty easy to get into the heart initially. I completed that step one afternoon at my desk... and then proceeded to be out of the office for over a week with an awful cold.
By the time I got back, the edging had popped off and completely separated from the heart shape and the whole thing looked like a mess. I was able to reattach them, though, and realized that I missed the next step in the instructions: to use the included "finishing tape" to firmly attach those tabs to the back of the heart. Oops!
I do appreciate when craft kits include all the little pieces that you need; lots of various tapes and glue dots and such for this project. Once I taped the tabs down, things were feeling a lot sturdier in general.
Next, we had to prep and install our light to truly transform this into a marquee!
They've included a battery powered LED strand to make that happen. I love little light kits like this; they're so cool for decorating various small items for the holidays in particular. Very easy to use and I don't think they really ever burn out!
You also get a pink mesh tube, which houses the light and makes things look a little more polished. The next step in assembly is to thread the light strand through the tube, which was actually a bit trickier than I thought.
Once I had it fully threaded, you basically pull the pink-tube-with-lights through a hole in the heart back-to-front and then glue it down around the edges of the heart shape.
This step... I had a lot of trouble with. The instructions have you use the glue dots to initially get the tube positioned, but then you go back and stick it down more permanently with white glue. Since white glue is so wet and doesn't set up right away, I basically couldn't get the tube to stay in place while it dried, despite my best attempt to tape it into place in the meantime.
And the mesh tube itself seemed to get a little twisted and warped in this whole process, so it didn't lay nicely, either. You can see the gaps pretty clearly in this photo.
I wish they had just included more glue dots for this part. Those stuck to the tube really really well, and it was easy to reposition when they didn't get into just the right spot. I just keep thinking about how if I struggled with this, I'm sure a younger kid would be pretty frustrated too.
A lot of the imperfections are less obvious when it's lit up. It's pretty cute, right?
Here you can see the edging a bit more clearly; it's metallic on the inside to help bounce the light around.
(I might have put that tab above the batteries on the wrong side... oops!)
The one other issue I had with this project is exactly what you're supposed to do with the battery back and the bit of light tube that is pulled through the back of the heart. The instructions say to use the included hang tag to attach the battery pack before hanging, but I wasn't sure where to put it: on the back? On the top edge so I can turn it on and off? It's bulky and not easily hidden, unfortunately.
The instructions also say to tape down the excess pink tubing, but I seemed to have a LOT more excess than I should have.
Here are a few more details of the tubing (and my coloring skills). I think my pink marker also may have faded from the sun pretty quickly, which is also a bit of a bummer.
Verdict: This month of the Target Art & Craft Kit Subscription was a very tween girl oriented project that was fairly complex and had a few shortcomings. Price wise, the retail price on this kit is exactly the same as the subscription price, so it wasn't a great value this time either. While I do think this could be a good project for the right kid, I have a feeling it was pretty hit or miss. It did arrive in late January so I can imagine this would have been a fun Valentine's Day project!
For this subscription overall, the kits we've received have ranged from $14.99 - $30 at usual retail prices. Like many 'surprise' subscriptions, there's always the risk that you'll get something that you or your kids don't like. This one was a bit of a dud for me, but I've gotten some projects I've really liked too, so I think that's part of the gamble with this subscription.
To Wrap Up:
If I subscribe today, can I still get this box? Previous comments have shown that not all subscribers receive the same items every month, so if you subscribe now, you may receive a different product.
Value Breakdown: For the $14.99 price of the box this month, we received the Light Up Heart Marquee by Creativity for Kids, worth $14.99 at retail price.
Check out all of our Target Arts & Craft Kit reviews and more educational and STEM subscriptions for kids! You can also find a list of all Target subscription boxes in our subscription box directory!
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Do you subscribe to Target's Art & Craft Kit Subscription for Kids? If you received this project, what did you think about it?
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