Children’s Craft Kits-Destroying My Sanity, One Kit at a Time
Two words: Kill me.
Really, I could stop writing right now. That is how much I hate those damn boxed craft sets.
Let’s start with the pictures on the box, shall we?
Fair Warning: If you buy this kit, expect those fuckers to be stuck to every crevice of your home and also know, it will make me an instant millionaire. Or, i will make roughly 19 cents.
Before I know it, the beast is sitting on my kitchen counter and my child is at my feet begging me to get the ‘GREATEST TOY EVER’ out of its death grip of a box.
I retrieve my butcher knife to take the damn box apart which takes about as much energy as I’d imagine a fifteen minute run on the treadmill. I wouldn’t really know that though because the treadmill sounds about as much fun as an ice pick to my eyeball…
I digress…
Once I’ve stomped, sliced, and shed a few tears, I am able to open the evil craft kit. I am immediately greeted with forty-eight insanely small, easy to lose, difficult to see, charms, sparkles, and loads of other who-knows-what-the-fuck-this-is shit. Crap that could have easily been housed in a soda pop can rather than a box the size of a briefcase. And, I fall for it every.single.time. Seriously, 48 pennies would be just as exciting…and also make for a nearly fifty cent craft kit over a $19.95 one. However, my child is OVER THE MOON. I go with it, because that’s what you do 90% of the time you’re on the parenting ride—you go with it.
We take apart fifteen plastic bags that house the 9 billion pieces (enough plastic to saran wrap a Kardashian compound) and lay it all out. Nine times out of ten, the glitter, the stickers, the buttons, the CRAP, ends up stuck to my coffee/kitchen table, stuck in the shag area rug, to the bottoms of our feet, or ingested by one of our idiot dogs. When we are finally through completing said masterpieces, we have more glitter-glue stuck to our eyelashes than we do holding anything together on the actual headbands.
The only time I seem to notice any glitter glue or pendants that are NOT stuck to my coffee table or my dogs intestines after ‘Operation: Make An Evil Headband’ is when I try to place the headband on my child’s head for school the next day. We make it about 10 minutes until we realize the glue was not completely dry and she’s left with streaks of purple glitter-glue stuck in her hair and a button stuck to her forehead. Then, removing the headband beast from her hair—which is NOW dry. She begins to shriek…
…because this is ‘All my fault’. Because….’I bought the kit’…because ‘I thought it was a GREAT idea to wear the headband to school’….’because I am the one responsible for the headbands not turning out the same way as they look on the box’…so the sob story goes.
By the end of the evening I am left cleaning up three thousand charms stuck to the floor and trying to decipher whether or not my dogs need a trip to the vet seeing they are pooping out glitter-glue and button charms.
The companies that manufacture these **awesome** craft kits know damn well that it’s the parents that are left figuring this shit out. I swear to you, they throw instructions into these kits simply for shits and giggles. If a free GoPro Camera came with the kit sheerly for the purpose of video taping us putting this shit together—I wouldn’t be surprised. Same goes with all toys that require the least bit of construction.
This is why I was always a fan of Melissa & Doug. 90% of their toys come pre-assembled. I like things that come in a box ‘ready to play’. I also like my food that way too; ‘Ready to Eat’. Nothing beats take-out Chinese or a tub of fried chicken.
My daughter, Haydan, received the Barbie Dream House for Christmas and I was worried that my husband was going to place himself in a mental institute after four hours of construction. Thank God for alcohol and a cool, collected man. Otherwise, I’d be visiting him in the ‘Barbie Dream House Assembly Psych Ward’. I’m not sure if that place exists but I’m sure I’m not the first to have the thought.
I give up on craft kits. I’m sticking to Michaels where I have control over the shit that I purchase. And, to be real, I get more for my money at Michaels than I do from a craft kit where the box cost more to assemble than the shit that’s on the inside.
You are done tricking me, craft kits! Going forward, I am blindfolding my kid when we go through the toy section of Target.
If you want to proverbially give the middle finger to the torture that is craft kits, would you mind clicking your mouse with your middle finger while clicking the brown button below? Every click gives me a vote, friends!! xo-Smash
Oh such fun things to look forward too!
hahaha. Well, hopefully you will get to play with DINOSAUR KITS!!!!!!!
OMG! Too funny. I hate having to deal with those hundreds of little pieces of things to put together with my kids (especially those Legos that my husband buys “for the kids” LOL!) These days I try to focus on DIY crafts so I can control what the mess looks like!!
Oh man, don’t even get me started on legos. I have more injuries from that company…I swear. lol
I don’t know how my mom put up with these. We had craft kits up the wazoo, including ones with these itty bitty piece of who-knows-what to make stained “glass.” Which, by the way, as a small child, I did not have the fine motor control to get those in the teeny tiny crevices, so guess who got to do them? My mom. And perler beads! (You know those plastic beads that never actually melt.) Oh, I hope Eve never asks for a craft kit…
Oh Bev, Eve will SO be all over those craft kits—-especially with how wonderfully creative her mother is. Get her into the jewelry making business early–steer her clear from the boxed stuff. Your stuff is absolutely beautiful!
Aw, thanks! I do think I want to keep her away from the boxed stuff 😉
Oh my goodness, this had me laughing so hard!
Crafts are evil. The end.
I despise craft kits. I have such bad anxiety when things are all over the place that something like this would make my head spin off, I’m sure! Oh, the sacrifices we make for our kids.
hahaa RIGHT?! I vacuumed today and I think I broke my vacuum with a combination of that stupid sand that is the hot shit right now and like 45 charms from a bracelet kit. AGHHH
Great, Now I have to take back what I got you for your birthday… Or I’ll just pair it with a bottle of Gin?
bahahahahha!!!!!
Rule 1: the stuff NEVER looks like it does on the box
Rule 2: The mess is always a thousand times worse than you expect!
This literally sounds like a nightmare. I can’t imagine the disappoint felt by your daughter and then it all being your fault :(. Let’s boycott purchased craft kits! Homemade DIY for the win!!