As the Autumn nights start to draw in, I find myself getting excited for Christmas and start browsing online to get ideas for my girls presents. Beados, from Character, have been something I've had my eye on for a while. So when we were given the chance to review the Quick Dry Design Station, it was like Christmas had come early!
"Beados magically joins with water!"
When I was little we had beads that had to be joined together by ironing them. I loved these beads but as I wasn't allowed to use the iron, I didn't get to use them often! Beados remind me of those beads but with one huge difference! To join your Beado design together, you simply spray it with water and wait for it to dry! (Why weren't these around in my day?). Even better, if you have this Quick Dry Design Station, you can create your designs and blow dry them using the clever little quick dry fan. Beados Quick Dry Station is just one of many little Beados set and comes with everything you need to get started:
- Quick Dry Design Station
- 500 beads, in 8 colours
- Tweezer Pen
- 2 bead design trays
- Water spray bottle
- 6 design templates
- 2 suction cups
- Display stand
- Connector bead
- Storage tray
We found Beados were really easy to use and the instructions were clear to follow. Once we had opened all the bags of beads and put the ones that would fit in the storage tray, it suddenly dawned on me that there wasn't a lid for the storage tray and there wasn't enough compartments for all of the colours! When we were finished we had to mix all our beads up and pop them in a little container. A lit for the tray would of been mega useful!
Using the tweezer pen was great. Tia, 6 years old, took a good few tries to figure out how it worked but once she had mastered it, it made creating designs much easier and quicker than trying to pick them up by hand! The design templates fit well under the design trays making it easy and simple to copy. The Quick Dry Design Station has space to hold your tweezers and spray bottle and it also includes space to hold bead pods which are available with other sets. Bead pods look like a useful storage item so we will need to have a look for extra refill sets that include these!
Once we had finished our bunny design and sprayed it with water, we could see the beads start to fuse together using a gluey-goo coating that must react when wet. We set the bunny design under the Quick Dry Design Station for the 15 minutes that it advises in the instructions and began to tidy up. After it's fifteen minutes we tried to lift it out but we lost an ear! I'm not sure if we maybe put too much water on that part or maybe it wasn't fully under the fan but the rest of the design had dried in time so we'll need to try again when we get more beads.
Beads are great fun and easy to use, this Quick Dry Design Station is available to buy here for £19.99 and there are also gorgeous little theme packs and refill packs starting from just £4.99. So if you're looking for something fun and crafty, that children can manage their selves. Beados is just the thing for you. If you'd like to find out more about Beados or see what other great toys Character have to offer, here are the links:
