Blue MarbleNATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Kids Arts and Crafts Kit - Includes Glass Tiles, Templates and More for Creating Mosaic Art Projects

8 year old grandson got this for his birthday and was anxious to start. He worked on one design with me. Easy directions. Only issue was it was a little difficult to apply the glass tiles to the plaster without getting them a little messy. Some kind of applicator, such as a tweezers might be more effective, but it was a great project for following step by step directions, timing and patience.

My seven year old loved making these. They are supposed to dry overnight, but ours took about 72 hours. We put furniture pads on the bottoms and will be using them as coasters. My daughter is so proud of her work. This project was less messy than I expected too! Mom win!

Kids loved learning about mosaics!

The price is right. This is a fun little kit to do on a rainy day that I can include more than one child.This is NOT stepping stones.This kit comes with:3 circle molds about the size of the palm of my hand. They are not very big.It comes with about 6 different templates.It comes with 3 packs of dry plaster that is mixable with water.It comes with ONE stir stick.A selection of gemstones.Some string if one wants to hang it.It comes with directions.Trying it out:A 5 year old joined me in making these. The directions made it super easy to do. Follow the directions from start to finish and it is easy.Mixing the plaster:There were 3 people making them. The 3 tablespoons of water varied for each of us. I used too much water. The second person used a little less. This was perfect. The third person was probably right at 3 tablespoons. Hers was right in between the two others.It DOES need to sit for 30 minutes so the gems don't sink in. I checked the plaster periodically by adding a stone from my design.Once the plaster dried a little the stones stayed put on top of the plaster without sinking.We did add food coloring to add color to the plaster. It worked very well!! We ended up with pastel pink, pastel purple and a pastel yellow.The gemstones:Eh. This is where I give it 4 stars. Though there are plenty of gemstones, we found there are more sought out gemstones. These we ran out of and ended up with rectangles and squares left over. The selection is fine if not using the templates. Using the templates, there are not enough triangles or big squares to do 3 templates.The stir stick:The kit comes with ONE stir stick. This is the other reason I gave it 4 stars. If 3 people are making them or one makes one at a time, one stir stick is not enough. We had to use old spoons because we had coloring to our plaster.4 stars:Excellent fun kit. Just lacking enough triangles and big squares. It only has one stir stick.

My kids love doing projects together and we always love doing National Geographic kits. This one did require some adult assistance but we had fun mixing the plaster and laying out their designs. The instructions were easy to follow and we had no issues with mixing and pouring the plaster. There are a few design templates you can follow, but my kids found it a little difficult to transfer the tiles over without messing them up. I do wish there were more tiles included. Ours took longer to dry than the instructions said so I just left them for a whole day. The string stayed securely and we have them hanging up. Overall, this was a fun project and my kids love seeing their finished products.