Baby Art Christmas Ball - Great idea, but very difficult to use with a very young baby, 10 Jan. 2014

What's in the box - one large green bauble, one tube of gold paint, one paint pen, one small roller.

The idea is that you roller the paint onto your child's hand, then press the hand onto the bauble to get a permanent hand print. Sounds easy....

In practice we found the paint very difficult to apply, it did not spread well. Then we had the biggest problem of all, getting the baby to open its hand long enough to make an impression on the bauble. When the hand was opened we slapped it on quickly, but a slight movement meant that we ended up with a smeary mess on the bauble. We couldn't remove the paint to start again, and then we found that the paint was pretty well stuck to the baby's hand, and quite a lot of scrubbing was required to remove it from the baby's skin. And from our skin for that matter. My wife then went on to use the pen to decorate the rest of the bauble, that bit worked well.

There is a lack of safety information regarding the paint...

This review is from: Baby Art Christmas Ball (Green & Gold) (Baby Product)

Easy with a co-operative child - Nice result, 10 Dec. 2013

I may just have been lucky - I did this with my little godchild while she was visiting as a surprise gift for mum and dad and it was very straight forward.

Admittedly there was bribery involved and she's almost two and was eager to see the result and to 'keep a secret'

It's not rocket science - apply paint with roller, apply hand (in our case) to the ball quite carefully and then remove and soak the hand in some warm water immediately for a minute before wiping it clean.

The hardest bit was writing her name elegantly on the ball with the supplied gold pen - I'm no calligrapher.

My TWO TOP TIPS for any other godparents, grandparents (or any non-parents who might not know the child as well as mum and dad do) is:

1: Let the child practise putting her dry, clean hand on the ball correctly before painting the hand. Once they have the knack of pressing properly (we found heel of the hand down first worked best) - it is much easier when using...

This review is from: Baby Art Christmas Ball (Green & Gold) (Baby Product)

Nice idea, but takes care to apply properly, 27 Nov. 2013

I was initially a bit dubious about this product, especially regarding the paint that needs to be applied to baby's hand (hand is much easier than foot!). But, after looking at the manufacturers website, they specialise in this sector and the parent company owns several well known brands (e.g. Maxi Cosi, etc) which increased my confidence.The concept is quite simple - paint baby's hand and then place the hand around a Christmas decoration. Painting a baby's hand is a bit of a challenge (babies never stay still, unless sleeping!) and then having to apply the hand around the ball is the second challenge. But with a bit of planning it works quite well, and voila - you have a nicely decorated ball.Of course you only get one real shot at decorating the ball, therefore you need to be careful (and it's easier said than done). But if you get lucky then the end result is actually quite nice.

This review is from: Baby Art Christmas Ball (Green & Gold) (Baby Product)