Crayola - The *Gift of Imagination* Review and Giveaway

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Call it crafty, call it LOVE (or something to keep the kiddies busy!)

With three young kids in our house, we love the arts and crafts to keep up out of trouble during the cold winter months!  Crayola sent us lots of super fun, mess-free products! Yes, mess-free... thank you! Many of Crayola's products make the perfect gifts and all are under $30. 

Crayola has created an on-line gift guide making it easy to select the perfect creative activity for the child on your list. It’s available at www.Crayola.com/gifts. You can search it by age, gender and type of product, like mess-free and washable products and activities that offer surprising experiences. Who wouldn’t be surprised to watch their artwork light up in the dark in multiple colors!

Top picks from the Gift Guide include:

Never before has paper been a surface for creating glowing drawings! Glow Explosion Spin Magic is a revolutionary activity toy that lets kids create multi-colored glow-in-the-dark art with markers that light up like glow sticks on paper. The spinning base lets kids create magical mobiles and whirling lanterns for a never-before-seen “glow show” that will wow the entire family when the lights go out. Colorful, glowing shapes like planets or hot air balloons appear as if they are spinning in mid-air. The base unit doubles as a lantern with five different scenes that create cool shadow-effects as they rotate around the radiant, glowing designs created on Glow Explosion paper. $19.99, 6+

The Crayola Color Wonder Sound Studio makes coloring a magical mess-free adventure for little eyes and ears! Kids can add fun, action-packed sound effects like dinosaur roars, motor cycle engines, giggles and even the voices of Buzz Lightyear, Woody and the Disney Princesses to their coloring pages. Sounds play back when they color their pictures. Just choose a sound and add it anywhere on the coloring page to create one-of-a-kind coloring stories with surprising sound effects. Kids can also play back all the sounds they experienced while they were coloring. Sixty sounds can be matched to any image on any page for hours of colorful fun! $29.99, 3+ 

Crayola Model Magic Presto Dots received “Toy of the Year” honors from Good Housekeeping, Parenting and Parents magazines. The “magic” behind Presto Dots comes from Model Magic’s – a truly different modeling material that doesn’t crumble. It’s not clay, it’s not dough – it’s Crayola Model Magic. Kids can create 3-D, bumpy characters with the easy-to-use “Pop-Dot” tool that grabs just the right amount of Model Magic for building an original creature. A quick press and pop covers characters with presto dots. Pop away with different colored dots, or pop dots on top of dots to create original 3-D creatures that air-dry in 24 hours. $19.99, 5+

 

So why are Crayola crayons, a holiday classic and a perennial stocking stuffer on the list? This year, specially-marked Crayola crayon boxes (48, 64, 96, 120-ct. as well as the 150-ct. Crayon Tower) include a free code that provides 6-month unlimited access to the Story Studio custom coloring book maker. What a great value! Available at Crayola.com, Story Studio allows kids to transform themselves into a cartoon character from a digital photo or web cam image, customize their character with hats, sunglasses, costumes and other fun accessories and then select a theme to create a custom story book they can print and color. Story Studio was named “High Tech Toy of the Year” by the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio. $5-$15, 3+ 

Want to give the Story Studio a test drive. Use  the following access code: PRY4DBJJ

ace and friends thoughts: they say a picture (or pictures) is worth a thousand words.  The kids had an absolute blast playing with the Glow Explosion Spin Magic, Mess Free Color Wonder Sound Studio, Model Magic Presto Dots and of course love the classic 64 Box of Crayola Crayons! 

If you are planning on shopping Crayola for the holidays, be sure to download a rebate form at www.crayola.com/promos/holidayFSI/. You could save over $20!

Win It: One LUCKY *ace and friends* reader will win a Crayola - Gift of Imagination Prize pack, including Glow Explosion Spin Magic, Mess Free Color Wonder Sound Studio, Model Magic Presto Dots and of course love the classic 64 Box of Crayola Crayons.

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The giveaway is open to US residents only. Entries are valid through Friday, December 24th at 11:59 PM EST.

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Disclaimer: Crayola provided me with the free products, information, and a prize pack through MyBlogSpark™.