Canal Toys So Magic DIY - Magic Wonder Garden- Magic Terrarium & Zen Garden Kit

My daughter was delighted when we handed over this gift, and it just went up hill from there. She opened the box and spent hours with it.

The sand is easy to apply to the kit, but the crystal growing tree takes a bit of effort to set up. I love that this kit comes with an extra tree so you can play with it twice.As far as the sand goes, this is a fun little zen garden, and it has the little rake to work with to make your landscape pretty.For the tree:* Measure 9mL (about 2 teaspoons) of water and pour it into the inner square compartment. There is no fill line like it says that there is.* Pour the grow powder into the water and stir it for 60 seconds.* Put the plastic base over the water compartment and then put the cardboard crystal into the slots that feed into the water.* Decorate with glitter sand and figurines.* Over 12 hours (I think it was a little longer for me) the crystals will grow off of the cardboard crystals.* Cover with the lid when you want the crystals to slow/stop growing.It is fun to watch the crystals grow. They tend to grow so big that they fall off of the cardboard crystal and fall onto the sand and characters, and they sometimes continue to grow off of the spots that they fall on.My slime was pretty dry, so I wound up putting some play doh slime in the slime lake. I don't think that the slime lake is really necessary, but everyone loves slime right now, so I can see why they wanted to add that selling point. Slime tends to dry out if it is not stored in a sealed container, so your slime lake will dry out and get weird if you don't put it in a container when you are not playing with it. I'd rather just have a lake of blue sand.

This isn't going to be a craft item that you'll be able to re-use over and over again, however it's pretty neat for one or two uses. The age range is older than my 4 year old, but I figured she'd enjoy it anyways - and she did.Pros: Plenty of different colored sand is included, enough to actually totally dump it out and re-do it all over again. The same goes for the trees - there are two so you get to create your garden twice. The little figures and props that come with it and perfectly suited for children, colorful and cute and include a unicorn. The effect of the tree growing is fascinating for a young child and my daughter was enthralled with that process.Cons: The potential for a big mess is pretty high, especially if you have a younger child doing it. We laid down some newspaper to at least help contain the sandy, glittery mess. The slime was somewhat dried out and didn't appear to be enough to fill the "lake" however with some massaging and stretching, I made it fit pretty well, and then by the next morning the slime had flattened itself out and filled up the lake perfectly. It includes a couple of tools, but we didn't find the little funnel to be very useful. Also, this is going to be short-lived fun, but in all honestly it's still a fun and entertaining craft. It would also make a unique gift.

My daughter liked this and it was a fun, easy project. You put it together once and then you watch it grow. It's supposed to fully grow in 12 hours, so I suggest doing it first thing in the morning so they can watch it. Then this one has a second grow, but you have to replace the first grow. (You have a cactus and a tree.)After that you've got the sand. I thought this would give it a longer life, but the sand colors get all mixed up over time. Then it was knocked off a shelf and we had to vacuum up the whole project.So there is more to this than the single grow kits they make, but there's more possibility of mess. I'm not sure whether I like this or the single grows better, but we did have fun with both.

My HFA 8 yrs old and I did this together. He had fun watching the tree and cactus grow and setting up his landscape colors like he wanted. Not really something that I would be tempted to keep around afterwards.

My daughter really enjoys the DIY kits. Basically, anything with slime and glitter. Completed her zen garden over the course of an afternoon with mom/teachers help. Marveled at the results the next day and moved on. For her, it was a one time make. Which is ok, because the kit is totally affordable. Note: we have an experiment/puzzle mat, to do crafts or anything that’s going to create a mess. The kit is messy. Have something like a mat or cleanable hard surface before creating.

You have to wait 12 hours for your tree to grow, so you need to have patience. This isn't an instant gratification toy. It is pretty and fun to set up. It comes with two trees, so you can play with the toy twice, but that's about it. Once you're done with it, it is pretty much trash. I like "disposable" toys though, and I think most parents can appreciate something that doesn't end up junking up a toybox with lots of plastic parts that never get played with again anyway.

Anytime you have a craft that includes sand and slime, the potential for mess is high, especially with younger kids. That's basically all this is plus the crystal growing trees, which my kids found interesting enough to keep checking on the growth. This kit is entertaining, and my kids did enjoy it, but once both the trees were "grown" they lost interest. Other than that, it's pretty much moving sand around. Glittery sand, so a double whammy if this stuff spills. The target age is 8+, and that's probably pretty accurate, but I feel like younger kids, like 5-6, would enjoy it more. I think they'd see the wonder in the crystals growing. It doesn't have small pieces, but I would think most kids are over the swallowing everything faze by 5 or so. Overall, it's a pretty good set, but it's really only good for two uses. With that it mind, I would say the price is okay, but maybe a little high given the limited options. I do think it would make a good gift, especially if that sand is going home with someone else!