Review: Mad About Ponies Craft Party

Posted by Jacq in Blog, Reviews | 1 comment

The trouble with having 4 kids is that most of the things I get sent to try are not suitable for all their ages, or there is simply not enough of the product to go around. They all seem to want to have a ‘go’ with everything, even if the product being reviewed is not aimed at them.

This Mad About Ponies Party box solved that problem, as in contains 6 ponies to paint and play games with them afterwards. 6 paint brushes are provided and there are 3 separate rows of paint pots so no one has to share too much.  The box comes with everything, even jumps, score cards, pencils and instructions. And the whole experience was surprisingly mess free thanks to a layer of newspaper on our table.

The ponies were nice and solid, and the paint went on easily and didn’t clog up the brushes too much.

The box is aimed at groups of  children aged 6-9  but even 4 year old DS managed to paint his horse all on his own with no problems.

Because there were 6 ponies and only 4 kids, the girls entered into some sort of convoluted agreement regarding the 2 left-over ponies, and they were shared, so all 6 figures were painted up. The drying took a little longer than the 15 minutes recommended, I’d suggest allowing half an hour before you let the kids get back to playing with them if you don’t want paint on everything.

As you can see, the finished products exhibit different levels of skill, but the kids were all very pleased with their efforts.

They then moved on to the games.

They made up the little jumps provided, and got the rosettes, dice and scorecards ready. There are full instructions for some suggested games; these include a best turned out pony competition and  several different jumping races.

I had envisioned my kids trying out the games calmly, then giving sensible feedback, but of course it wasn’t like that. Instead there were arguments and tears, and accusations of cheating before they finally distributed the rosettes ‘fairly’. Then they wanted me to judge the ‘best’ pony, but I wasn’t falling for that and refused.

I’m sure most of the problems with the games stem from the fact I was using the pack with siblings, in my experience groups of unrelated children at parties are usually much better behaved.

I think the ideal age for this activity would be 6-8 year olds, but my 10 year old loved painting her pony and trying to ‘organise’ the others into  playing the games properly. That was until the 6 year old called her a stupid cheater and the 4 year old threw his pony at her.

I can confirm the ponies are pretty tough and can survive bouncing off 10 year olds and hitting the floor without shattering.

Despite the verging on disastrous end to the activity, I really rate this party pack and would recommended it for a cheapish, at-home craft party for a bunch of quieter, well behaved children. The Mad About Ponies Party kit retails for £ 19.99 and is available from Amazon.

We were sent a Mad About Ponies Party kit to review, but the opinions expressed above are all my own.