Living in suburb, I don’t make it downtown too often and I try not to, if it’s not necessary.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Toronto and everything but going into the city during the weekends is much more challenging than during workdays.  Yesterday afternoon, we spent almost 4 hours on the road including the usual heavy traffic on the Gardner Express, driving through the G20 march (again!) and my 8 year old threw up all the way, but hey I’m not complaining, cause the purpose of the trip was to get a bunch of cool toys to test, and you will hear more from me in the coming weeks.

The first one we tried is — 100% cool sticker maker by Fashion Angels Enterprise

Kids of all ages love stickers, I once thought they should get tired of it when they are 6 and older, NO WAY !! My 6 year old and 8 year old are still crazy and all over the stickers when they can get it, big or small, now imagine they can make their own !!

This is what the package looks like,

And after you open it;

It claims that you can draw your own stickers, use magazine and comic images, make stickers from your photos or design stickers on your computer, it can be used with anything not thicker than a piece of paper or photo, great !

We were ready to have fun ! My 6 year old quickly pulled out the stencils provided and  traced carefully, it’s wonderful to see the concentration when she works on things she enjoys rather than homework she also colored in “so the sticker will look pretty” she said.  When she finished her picture, we slide it into the back of it, it would have been nice if we knew it should be face up or face down (see picture on right), cause apparently the sticker came out the wrong side and half of her excitement was gone.  But as Mom, you never give up the fun with your child, so we tried again.  This time, to our surprise, the whole thing was STUCK !!  I mean, literally, the tape got stuck inside and ain’t coming out no matter how hard I turned/pulled/poked…the darn thing just wouldn’t work.  My 6 year old said “That’s it? All done??”  She walked away with disappointment.  THAT was the worst part.

WOW..I couldn’t even evaluate the play time and play value, uh, 2 minutes play time and zero play value ???

Honestly, this is the shortest lived toy in my house ever, even shorter than the Rubik’s Cube I bought from DOLLARAMA.  This “100% Cool Sticker Maker” turned out to be not so cool at all.

Note to self –thanks goodness I didn’t buy this toy myself, and lesson learned — always ask around for opinions and input before your toy purchase.  Would you??

Special thanks to The Noise on Toys, an independent toy reviews group based in Ottawa, run by Marcia MacQuarrie, with tester quotes and user comments when it comes to toy purchasing decisions.  If you are in Toronto or Ottawa area and interested in participating the Toy Testing Program, please get in touch with them here.