It’s been a little while since I’ve gone through a craft kit, and today I’m excited to bring you a new one. It’s both new-to-me and fairly new on the market itself (I believe the first one was December 2018).
I came across this Kawaii Craft Kits earlier this year and knew I had to try it out when they announced April’s box would be a squishy makeover kit. This is a craft I’ve wanted to try out since I found Moriah Elizabeth’s makeover videos on YouTube.
Craft kits like these are super fun to pick up and try something new—something I’m a HUGE fan of.
I have to be honest. I was completely blown away by the amount of items and variety. While I expected to have enough to decorate a squishy, I did not expect the extra detail that was put into curating this box. You can really tell the curator put time and thought into coming up with everything you could need to decorate these squishies—even rubber bands to hold a glued section in place in case you really want to go crazy with rearranging and cutting apart the squishy. Not to mention we were given 7 colors, a perfect set to mix up lots of different colors and a pastel for some extra fun.
I have loved my Sophie and Toffee boxes, but it’s nice finding another high quality box that focuses on other mediums for when I want to do something completely new or different.
It just so happened that Jackie from NerdECrafter did a review of some of these Kawaii Craft Kits while I was waiting for my box. I was pleased to hear that she was satisfied with the boxes. I also agree with her conclusion that Sophie and Toffee and Kawaii Craft Kits feel very different. I’m not looking at one replacing the other, and I look forward to continue my periodical self-spoiling with both boxes!
The box
With that said, let’s get to the box opening.
While I’m a complete beginner to this craft and will not realize if there’s anything missing, from my first impression and watching squishy makeover videos, it certainly seems like I’m getting everything I could have hoped for. I have seen some people use a popsicle stick to paint squishies, so perhaps that could have been an addition to the box, but I haven’t had any trouble with using the paint brushes.
The project
I chose to do the ice cream squishy for this blog post. Since there were 2 scoops, I chose some of my favorite ice cream flavors (not necessarily together :P): mint chocolate chip and strawberry. I mixed up all of the colors pretty easily with what was provided! This is what 1 coat of the pink looked like on the squishy:
I also noticed that the ice cream had a bow on the top scoop, so I tried my best to trim that off and fill it in with fabric paint to smooth it over. I’m sure it’ll still be noticeable at the end, but I’m hoping the toppings will help hide it a bit more.
When my second coat of paint had dried, I noticed that it was peeling up off of the curvier parts of the ice cream cone. I remember Moriah saying that fabric paint will not adhere to smooth squishies. I’m not sure if it was this or me putting on pretty thin layers of paint, so I peeled off as much paint as I could and started over.
I didn’t want to risk this happening again, so I also took some sandpaper I had and roughed up the surface as best as I could. I then applied thicker coats of paint, and that seemed to do the trick.
I’d be curious to know if other people were having a similar issue, and if so, sandpaper would be another great thing to include with the box.
After 3 coats of paint, here is what the base of my ice cream squishy looks like!
The details
It was then time for the details! For the mint chocolate chip, I had to of course add chocolate chips, so I used the small paint brush to make dark brown shapes.
For the strawberry scoop, I wanted to paint some chunks of strawberries, so I used a dotting tool and painted blobby darker pink spots. I didn’t do this on the very top of the scoop, however, because I’ll be adding a chocolate drizzle and sprinkles :D.
Finally, for the cone, I wanted to accentuate the waffle, so I highlighted the ridges of the cone with a darker tan color. I did this with a thin brush.
And then it was time for the pièce de résistance: the chocolate drizzle and sprinkles. I added the outline of the drizzle with a paint brush, and then I filled in the shape straight from the bottle.
Moriah says that it’s important to add the sprinkles while the fabric paint is still wet, so I sprinkled them over the drizzle.
I did find that I had to poke several holes in it once it was finished. The paint trapped the air to the point that it didn’t squish. My sewing pin did the trick! Thanks to Chelsey DIY for that tip.
And here is what it all looks like once it’s finished being decorated!
Overall, this was a really fun kit to work through. I definitely feel like I received more than what I paid for. I loved being able to get a snippet of what is involved with squishy decorating all in one place!