crayola holiday ideas (and giveaway)

if you are anything like me, you have been putting off your christmas shopping.  i honestly cannot believe that there are only 8 days until christmas (and fewer for me because we are celebrating early this year).   yikes!

if you are looking for ideas for your children or other people's children still, i have some great ideas for you.  i think one can never go wrong giving crayola products.  no matter how many crayons, markers and colored pencils we have, there is nothing like opening up a new box of crayons and taking a deep whiff of that new crayon smell.

crayola has even more than that to offer kids this year, however.  we were all excited to try out three new products from crayola, which worked perfectly because each of my three kids got to try out something new.

for tate, we experimented with the crayola beginnings color me a song.  this is basically a coloring station that has a pressure-sensitive board.  by choosing any combination of drum, trumpet, piano or guitar buttons, kids can color along to the music.  the music picks up tempo when your coloring is faster, and slows down in tempo when the coloring moves slower.  tate really enjoyed pushing the different buttons to get different combinations of music.  he and tessa both enjoyed working on their pictures in time to the music.  the color me a songCrayola Glow Station can create with Light!
margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> was named "toy of the year" by familyfun magazine and was an american baby magazine pick for "best toys of the year.  it is recommended for kids 24 months and up and suggested retail price is $24.99.

tessa may have ended up with everybody's favorite:  the  crayola glow station. this is a light-sensitive canvas that comes with a light wand. kids can use the light wand on the canvas to draw freehand or use stencils and textures sheets (included) to draw animals or other designs. there is also a diamond-shaped tip to attach to the pen for making a starburst design. the drawings fade with time so the canvas can be used again and again. this is by far everyone's favorite to play with (even bill wanted to have a turn!). drawing with light is so different; the kids really wanted to spend the most time with this toy. my only caveat is that it needs to be fairly dark to get the most enjoyment out of it (this hasn't been too hard in cloudy chicago!). i've noticed that there is now a day and night glow station that may remedy this issue. the other thing is that it is recommended for ages six and up. both tessa and tate needed a lot of reminders not to scratch the canvas with the diamond-tip so this is something to keep in mind. the crayola glow station retails for $29.99 (but can be found for $14.99 here).

zoe is very creative and loves new opportunities to express herself so she was quite excited to experiment with the  crayola color explosion glow dome.  this toy comes with two coloring surfaces:  a flat one for inside the dome to color a more detailed picture on.  then kids can color coordinating shapes and images on the dome itself.  when finished, turn off the lights, and flip the switch to watch your drawings glow and move.  kids can control the spinning of the dome for slow, medium or "warp" speed.  the dome comes with two tracing pictures, an underwater scene and a spaceship scene.  fish and bubbles or stars and planets can rotate around a diver with a treasure chest or a spaceship.  personally, i thought this one sounded more exciting than it turned out to be, but zoe really enjoyed creating new scenes with it and did not seem at all disillusioned or disappointed.  the crayola color explosion glow dome is also recommended for ages 6 and up and it retails for $29.99 (but currently costs a lot more than that here).

the really fun news is that i have one crayola color explosion glow dome to giveaway to one of you who are willing to tell me what you most want from santa this year. for a second entry, you can check out crayola's give the gift of creativity sweepstakes. fill out a wish list for your child to enter and then come back here to tell me what you chose from the wish list to think about giving to your child. this giveaway is for u.s. residents only. i will draw a winner on christmas eve.

we were thankful to receive one of each of these three products to try out at home for this review.  i have received no other compensation for this review.  thank you to crayola and myblogspark for the opportunity to give these products to my children and to write this review.  the opinions expressed here are purely my own.  also, if you use my links to amazon to purchase one of these products, they may give me a small token of gratitude as well.