Brainstorm Water Art Review
DISCLOSURE – THIS ITEM WAS GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW. ALL THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS ARE THE REVIEWER’S OWN.
Reviewed by Helen O
Having two small children (aged 3 and 6 years), I’m always on the lookout for new, budget-friendly ways of keeping them both entertained at home and I think I’ve found an absolute gem with the Brainstorm Water Art set.
Arriving really quickly, packaged in a padded envelope, the product arrived in pristine condition. Inside the envelope I found the Brainstorm Water Art, 12 pack. My son was so excited when I showed him when he got in from school and couldn’t wait to get the pack open and give it a whirl.
The first thing I loved about this set was fact that no single-use plastic was used in the packaging; it was a breath of fresh air! The packaging comprised of an outer box and inside this box, I found a cardboard envelope, containing 12 different coloured water pens and another smaller cardboard box containing a ceramic spoon.
The pens were a unique triangular shape and there was a brilliant selection of colours, which gave lots of opportunity for different designs and themes.
The ceramic spoon resembles one of the Chinese soup spoons. As it’s ceramic, my worry would be that if it gets dropped, it’s likely to smash and then that renders the pack unusable without a replacement. As the pack is marketed at children, this is a very real possibility.
I also loved that the box contained all the instructions you need to carry out the activity, so there was no separate piece of paper lurking about, with a potential to get lost (I’m sure this doesn’t just happen in our family). In saying that the instructions for use are really straightforward, so the set is really simple to use. You basically use the coloured pens to draw your chosen design on the back of the spoon (avoiding leaving white spaces). Dip it in a bowl of water once, take it out and then put it back in the water and hey presto, the design transfers from the spoon to the water. Really simple, yet effective and judging by how long my children spent doing this activity, highly addictive!
There was so much inspiration for designs on the box, so we got going quickly copying some of these, such as the strawberry and rainbow. Then my children started coming up with ideas of their own. One observation that I made was that with the bigger pack, I think it would be useful to have another spoon, so that it makes it more of an activity to do with friends, rather than on your own. There was a bit of bickering with the ‘it’s my turn’, but that’s pretty standard in our house.
Another top tip I found was to make sure you use an appropriately sized bowl, so that it was deep enough to manoeuvre the spoon and also wide enough to stop your new design from wiping out existing designs floating on the surface.
A couple of times we had an issue with getting the design off of the spoon and into the water, but it didn’t stop us having fun and was likely just teething problems and learning the technique.
The set is aimed at age 3+ years, which is just about right. My 3 year old needed a bit of assistance with the design, as she’s not the world’s greatest artist and definitely can’t be trusted near a bowl of water either! However, my 6 year old had a great time thinking up designs and executing them. Not going to lie, I also had a fab time turning my doodles to water art!
The Brainstorm Water Art comes in various pack sizes, with 3 pens, 6 pens and 12 pens. There are also themed packs; Fairy Garden, Safari and Galaxy which come with stencils and I would imagine these would be better for the less-artistically skilled artist (such as me!)
The RRP of the 12 pack Brainstorm Water Art set is £12.99, which I think is pretty reasonable price for a product such as this. I would absolutely buy this as a Christmas gift for children in my family and for my friends’ children too, I think it’s ideal and will be recommending it to all of my friends as a lovely stocking filler.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £12.99
Available to buy from www.very.co.uk.