Ravel Tales are a new collectable ‘surprise’ craft toy by Character Toys and it’s amazingly refreshing and innovative.
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Aged 5+, Series 1 Ravel Tales incorporates all of the excitement of a surprise toy mixed up with learning and experiencing key craft skills. What’s also fantastic is that most of the packaging used to hide the surprises is actually the craft material used to make crafts! How cool is that?
If you like this craft kit review then you may also be interested in my reviews of the Spin Master Pottery Cool, the LoopdeDoo Bracelet Maker and the 3Doodler Start Essentials Pen Set
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What’s Are Ravel Tales?
Background: Ravel Tales are cute, quirky characters that live in a cozy, little sewing shop called The Last Strand. They live comfortably hiding from customers inside balls of yarn but get curious about the outside world. So they form a club called The Unravellers and plot how they can venture out (and unravel their yarn balls) without being noticed and these adventures become their Ravel Tales.
There are 12 Ravel Tales to collect in Series 1 and each one comes with 9 fun surprises (including the plushie). The surprises and hidden plush toy are found as kids unravel the yarn balls and include
- Colourful yarn (three different types) – thin yarn to make friendship bracelets& to sew with, medium yarn to make a pom pom and thick yarn to use as stuffing
- Plastic sewing needle
- Pompom clip
- Pet name tag
- Reuseable pom pom maker
- Button charm x2
- 2 pieces of material
- and the collectible plush toy that found at the center.
How Do Ravels Tales Work?
Starting from the outside kids carefully unravel the Ravel Tales yarn ball, revealing the hidden surprises as they go. The surprises are attached to the different types of yarn they unravel and have cute paper labels on that tell you what they are.
In the center, they will find two pieces of material carefully wrapped around their sleeping Ravel Tale character. These pieces of material are sewn together and stuffed with the thick multicoloured yarn to create a cute pet pad/cushion for the plushy toy.
It’s very easy to unravel and you end up with a good quantity of yarn to raft with plus some nice sized, good quality, plastic accessories to use with the crafting.
What Craft Projects Come With Ravels Tales?
Inside the box as well as a paper collectors guide you’ll find and instruction leaflet with clear instructions.
There are four projects that make the following.
Pom Pom
The pom pom maker is easy to use and makes what I would call a disc style pom pom. It does need tidying up (like all pom poms) with scissors after. I would recommend pulling out one strand of the medium yarn to tie the pom pom off as it makes a tighter core.
Pet Pad Cushion
The material and holes on both pieces were well made and each side matched together beautifully. We found the holes are a snug fit for the needle eye and the needle needed a firm push through them. But that’s intentional. If the holes were any bigger the finished pet pad wouldn’t be as neat. You’re supposed to use the thick multicoloured yarn to stuff it with but we wanted to keep that as it was so pretty so used our own stuffing material.
We also changed the stitch used (the instructions show you how to use over stitch which is perfect for sewing novices) and used a blanket stitch.
Friendship Bracelets
You get a lot of thin yarn to make the friendship bracelets and pet collar so don’t worry about making mistakes.
Pet Collar
The Pet Collar is made using the same technique as the friendship bracelets but you need to make a smaller loop as knot, at the other end, going through the loop is what secures the collar in place.
We made a double length collar so it could be work as a necklace as well.
What Do We think Of Ravels Tales?
Ravel Toys is a brilliant new addition to the surprise collectible genre of toys. It still has the excitement of the surprise unboxing but cleverly uses the craft materials as the packaging resulting in very little waste… especially if you upcycle the cardboard box that comes with it!
What’s great is that after the excitement of unboxing there’s still plenty to do for kids as they work their way through the 4 craft projects that come with it. And then of course there’s loads of imaginary play available afterwards. Young kids may need some help making the projects.
The plushy character in the middle does look a little raggy when it’s first uncurled, which is to be expected, seeing as he/she’s been curled up under a big pile of yarn! the material used is a super soft short velour type material with a bean-filled bottom to help the character stand up.
What I particularly like is how the toy nicely flows and comes together. There’s excitement and sensory satisfaction at the start followed by pride and satisfaction at the end and I think that’s the important part. Young kids take great delight in being able to make things no matter how wonky they are. It’s part of the joy of their world and for some kids, Ravel Tales will be a wonderful memory-making toy.
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