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130 of 131 found the following review helpful:
 Great Rainy Day ActivitySep 23, 2011
By Jenna Glatzer
Okay, first, why does the girl on the box have on hooker eye shadow?
Aside from that, what a great little kit this is. It arrived here on a rainy afternoon and was a perfect activity for my 4-year-old and me... okay, I admit it, I kept playing with it long after she'd gone on to something else.
Now, the good and not-as-good:
PROS:
* There's plenty of modeling dough here to make lots and lots of beads.
* There are also plenty of pendants. Just two pairs of earrings, though.
* It's really simple. You take little pinches of the dough and roll them with your hands, then twist two or more colors together, then roll them around in the manual bead spinner to make cool swirly patterns. Then you poke a hole though the middle of each bead and let them dry overnight on the bead tree provided. Once they're dry, you can coat them with a glaze to make them shiny.
* The dough is very easy to work with and has a nice, light texture.
* You can get some really pretty color combinations and make jewelry that even adults would wear. Makes for great gifts for a girl to give to her family.
* Refillable. All you need to do is pick up some more Model Magic dough, and you can keep making beads. Forever and ever.
CONS:
* You really don't need the whole "bead spinner" thing. You'd get the same result (faster and more efficiently, probably) by just rolling it around in your hands. Once you poke a hole in the bead, it won't keep the shape it had from the spinner anyway. So, really, what you're paying for is the dough, the (cheap, but fine) jewelry parts, a small sheet of accent jewels, a couple of little cookie-cutters to make heart and diamond shapes, an ounce of glaze, and a cool plastic tree apparatus to poke holes in the beads and hang them while they dry.
* Storage is an issue. There are just four compartments in the spinner for the dough, but it comes with eight colors-- and you can't let the different colors touch each other or they immediately stick together. You're supposed to put leftover dough in Ziplocs.
* The dough can stain (hands, clothes, your walls)... make sure your work area is protected and that your daughter doesn't run off with the un-dry beads and manage to get them smashed into your rugs. Not that I'd know anything about that. No, siree.
All in all, I like it a bunch. It brings back memories of when I used to make Fimo beads in college, and now I can share that with my little daughter with this much-easier-to-work-with dough.
24 of 25 found the following review helpful:
A great craft for girlsSep 22, 2011
By Eric
"pilotdaddy"
I have to admit that I was pretty excited about this gift for the girls. I have two daughters ages 4 and 5 and knew that I would have to assist in this project since it is recommended for ages 6 and older. It comes with 8 different colors of model magic and enough accessories to make a charm bracelet, 3 pendant necklaces, 5 toggle sets (for necklaces or bracelets), 2 earring sets, 18 sticky rhinestones, 2 shape cutters, drying rack, bead glaze, and the device that swirls.
Overall impression: It's a fairly easy set up and my kids can do all the steps by themselves, it's just a lot of steps and they need reminders and assistance at times. I find it odd that there are 8 colors and only 4 storage bins on the device. It recommends the model magic to be in ziplock bags as well so I find that having storage bins is unnecessary. My girls have a blast picking out colors and swirling them together then picking which shape to put them in or to press them onto the designs. We've even rolled them into some glitter that we had from a previous craft (don't recommend because glitter is on everything from then on). The girls have had endless joy from making beads. The only problem we've come across is that they want a finished product right away. The beads have to sit for at least 24 hours. I live in the dry desert of Las Vegas and they were still a little squishy 24 hours later. We still glazed them and let them sit overnight again. The glaze really makes them shiny! After that...my daughters were able to make earrings and a bracelet. Unfortunately one of the beads broke off the bracelet and they even left some color stains on her wrist. Regardless, my kids love the jewelry boutique. They have necklace pendants drying right now and can't wait to put them together tomorrow.
18 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 Love it!Nov 09, 2011
By Vicki Bohn
"Internet Shopper"
After reading over the instructions, it was easy to begin having fun making beads with my daughter. I must admit, I like making the beads as much as my 7 year old does!
The spinner is really just for spinning the dough together to make nice swirls of color, not for actually shaping the beads themselves. Just the right amount of spins on the spinner gives you a pretty swirl effect, but if you swirl too much, the colors incorporate into each other and just become one color. Remember blue and yellow make green? That sort of thing.
Once you shape your beads by hand, there is a tapered plastic stick for making a hole in the dough, transforming your little wad of dough into a bead. You'll loose shape to your bead in the piercing process to varying degrees, depending on how rough you are & will need to reshape a little before threading your bead onto the plastic stick that connects to the stand to dry.
I haven't gotten the hang of adding texture to the beads with by imprinting them with the textures provided. I either end up squishing the bead too much or making too subtle of a design. It's a fun idea though & maybe I'll get better at it with more practice.
The bead glaze really gives the beads a nice, glossy finish. When we run out-which won't be for a while-I plan on using 1 part water to 1 part glue, as I read about doing on the crayola website.
This set comes with enough supplies to allow one or two kids to make a good amount of jewelry. That being said, I am glad that replacement dough, string for stringing the beads, etc. is easy enough to procure so we can continue to make beaded items for unsuspecting friends and relatives for years to come!
I would also buy this craft kit as a gift without hesitation. I'm thinking it's most appropriate for crafty girls aged around 7-10. Any younger and a grown up would need to be heavily involved. As a gift, I think it provides a good bang for your buck.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Create Your Own One of A Kind Jewelry!Sep 20, 2011
By M. G. Gagliano
"Maria"
Wow we received Jewelry Boutique and within 5 minutes had made our first beads. We love the possibilities. My 6 year old loves that she can take her favorite colors and create amazing beads of spectacular, one of a kind swirly colorful abstract designs. The kit comes complete with:
8 Packs of Model clay (blue, orange, light green, razzmatazz, tropical rainforest, indigo, dandelion, cerulean)
Pendant charms
Shape cutters (we loved this)
Cords for necklaces
Elastic cords for bracelets
Charms for bracelets
A bead punch to push through the bead and put on the cords.
Toggle set closures
18 gems for bedazzling
A bead dryer
Earring posts and wires depending on your beads.
Bead glaze
The Spinner complete with work station.
Simply, put amounts of clay into the spinner and spin until your hearts content. The clay air dries and you are ready to design your piece. Great gift for girls 6+ Even moms will love it.
8 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 not as much fun as it looks like it would beNov 17, 2011
By Carol C.
"ccjello"
I generally enjoy Crayola products, but this one was a bit of a dud. This looks like it would be much more fun than it actually is. We played with it once and were unable to make anything worth keeping. The whole process of making beads and drying them on the drying stand is a little cumbersome. The kit indicates that you can make marbled designs by twisting two colors of clay together and then smooshing them onto the device, but our designs weren't particularly attractive. The packets of "clay" were small and dried out quickly to a weird spongy-textured mess. There was very little "value added" in the kit. Not highly recommended.
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