Review/Giveaway: Kidable Adventures Doodlebug Busy Bag

I recently had the pleasure of working with Venessa Banks, the CEO and founder of Kidable Adventures who let me test out one of their DoodleBug Busy Bags for my 3-½ year old daughter, Kyleigh. 

Kyleigh loves doing crafts which is great for her but not always so great for me when it comes to the challenge of figuring out what is age appropriate for her, and what we can do together without making a huge mess or breaking the bank. 

Another factor making it difficult to get crafts is that we live 40 miles from any civilization and the closest store does not have a great selection of craft materials. For us to drive to an actual craft store, we would have to drive about 64 miles each way. There is the option to order from those craft stores online, but I would need to purchase more in bulk and repeating over and over again gets a little boring.

DoodleBug Busy Bags are a fantastic option for those looking for something fun and creative for you and your child to explore, and it addresses all of our challenges!

DoodleBug Busy Bags are monthly subscription kits, starting at $15.99/month - $179.88/year, specifically put together for children ages 3-8. Your child will receive a bag each month with 4-8 different crafts. There are many ways to see what’s going on at Kidable Adventures by visiting then on Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram or you can stay connected by signing up for their newsletter by going to Stay Connected

Our bag came with 6 “Cute as a Bug” craft activities. As I was reading over the instructions, I noticed it said to “glue” specific things. I was a little concerned about having to drag out the glue and having it make a huge mess, until I saw the glue dots. AWESOME!! You literally do not need anything besides what is provided for you in the kit. Everything is already cut or perforated and if they aren’t already self-adhesive, you have glue dots. Genius!

I also noticed that each craft takes only about 15 minutes to put together, which seemed to be the perfect time for Ky, without wanting to get up and run around again or move on to another craft. 

Paper Plate Ladybug Craft Kit

The first craft bug we created was the “Paper Plate Ladybug Craft Kit” which came with a string for hanging, a red colored paper plate, black dots, a pair of eyes, a mouth and a head. While watching the bug come “alive”, we learned a fun fact about that particular bug by reading the instructions. The instructions are very simple to follow. Ky loved being able to put the black dots on the ladybug herself and wherever she wanted to. She couldn’t wait to hang it up when it was finished.

Paper Plate Butterfly Craft Kit

The “Paper Plate Butterfly Craft Kit” was the same concept as the Ladybug. It came with a blue butterfly shaped plate, a green body, eyes, antennae, dots and other shapes for decorating and a red string for hanging. The mouth is already drawn onto the face. All of the shapes are self-adhesive. She liked being able to place the shapes wherever she wanted, to create her own unique butterfly.

Bee Magic Color Scratch Craft

Another kit we had was “Bee Magic Color Scratch Craft” which is a honeybee that is all black and you are provided with a scratching tool to bring out the color in the bee. My daughter found this to be exciting every time she saw a new color come out. All she wanted to do was keep scratching so she scratched the whole thing, but she had so much fun, we didn’t mind.

3D Buzzing Hive Sticker Scene

The “3D Buzzing Beehive Sticker Scene” came with two beehive cutouts and a bunch of stickers of bees, flowers and honey jars. This one was probably the easiest for her to do since it already has the string attached and she only had to peel and stick the stickers. She did have fun placing the stickers and seeing her hive come together. She even let her little brother help. 

Ant Clothespin Craft Kit

The “Ant Clothespin Craft Kit” came with a black clothespin, 2 small black pom-poms, 1 larger pom-pom, 2 wiggle eyes, a black body and a black head. All the pieces except for the pom-poms are self-adhesive. The paper backings on each of wiggle eyes were a little harder to get off especially for someone who does not have longer fingernails. I had to really work at it and I have good length nails. Other than that, everything came together nicely and Ky loves wiggling the eyes and clipping the clothespin onto shelves and her clothes or just about anything else.

Lightning Bug Jar Craft Kit

I think our favorite craft overall in this kit was the “Lightning Bug Jar Craft Kit”. We both just loved putting this one together. The jar is an actual jar that has a screw on top so she enjoys being able to hold her “treasures” in the jar. It also came with a purple self-adhesive face with eyes and a mouth drawn on, a red self-adhesive nose, and white self-adhesive wings, 2 yellow pom-poms and 4 green pipe cleaners. She likes flying it around the house and was amazed when we added one of the 4 provided mini glow sticks inside the jar. She thought it was the coolest thing to see it glowing in the dark.

We really enjoyed this collection of crafts - if you'd like to give a DoodleBug Busy Bag a try, Kidable Adventures is offering a coupon for 30% off the first month of a monthly subscription to the DoodleBug Busy Bags by using the coupon code: ‘DBBB2014’ and will be valid until 10/18/14.

Kidable Adventures Website
Kidable Adventures on Facebook

Kidable Adventures will also be participating in a giveaway for one DoodleBug Busy Bag valued at $17.99. This giveaway will be limited to the United States. This giveaway ends just before midnight ET on October 23, 2014, and will be for the DECEMBER DoodleBug Busy Bag.

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment in this entry as instructed by the Rafflecopter, then leave the name you commented under and your email in the box in the Rafflecopter entry. (This lets us contact you if you win!)  This will open up additional optional entries to increase your odds of winning.

Good luck, everyone!


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