EK Success American Girl Crafts Wreath Kit, Cecile and Marie-Grace Paper Flower

My 10 year old daughter and I enjoy doing crafts together, and I thought this would be a great one to try. The colors are wonderfully bright, which she loves. She is very detail oriented, so I felt she could handle this craft. The box says for ages 8 and up, after all, and how hard could it be to layer paper circles?Some of the paper flower directions were very difficult to create, even for me. Some were not as tough, and those are the ones we ended up finishing the wreath with.The glue provided is basic white school glue that takes a while to dry. This doesn't work well for some of the layered flowers or for applying the beads & buttons, which fall apart while the glue is drying. I ended up pulling out my hot glue gun to end the frustration.There are plenty of pieces with this, enough to possibly do another wreath if we wanted. Which we don't. So the extras went into her craft box to use for whatever other crafts she wants to do.Yes, our final product was very colorful and pretty. However, this craft was not as easy as I thought it would be for us. We've done a lot of crafts together, and I've never had a children's craft cause me so much stress, most of which came from my daughter being so stressed. Her perfectionistic tendencies came out in full force, and this quickly became "not fun". We actually didn't finish it during the first sitting, we both had to walk away. I really don't think she could have done this on her own at all, and I cannot imagine a younger girl doing this with ease.

My 8 year old daughter and I tackled this wreath together.There are TONS of pieces, which is GREAT.There are instructions to make three different kinds of flowers, which was a nice touch - it was interesting to note that we differed in the flowers we each thought was easiest to make. The instructions were easy for her to read (however she is a strong reader) and follow along. I do not think a much younger child would have as much luck though as there is a lot of folding and fluffing, and the tissue paper is very easy to tear. There are plenty of different tissue paper colors and sizes - a very nice assortment. Glue is included; however you will need a long stapler, scissors, and tape.Unfortunately, none of our flowers looked quite as nice as the picture. They were just really hard to fluff and smush quite right. Luckily the kit makes more flowers than required for the actual wreath as there is only one wreath base included. We made the flowers over several days and then picked the best. The base is pretty simple and I think with a bit of cardboard we could easily replicate it.I found getting them placed and glued on the wreath messy and frustrating ultimately even though the instructions were really top notch.Bottom line: This is a fun activity for 8+ as long as your child is willing to take his/her time. Doing it together was really nice, and I found it pretty relaxing - a nice de-stressor. I think the price is too high for a single wreath.

We have made our way through various American Girl craft kits through the years, with varied success; our first one, which involved making tiny pom-poms for a scarf and a doll's matching mini-scarf, was quickly abandoned, but then my daughter was only 7 at the time. Now 9, she opened this kit herself, and by the time I'd finished making dinner, she had fully completed a pretty, delicate, cheerful (and fairly disposable) paper wreath. Which has very little to do with American Girl dolls, aside from thematically tying in to Cecile and Marie-Grace, but I suppose fulfills the company mission of empowering girls to make and do things on their own. Or at least with help from a kit.These kits crack me up. Everyone knows that the hundred-dollar status dolls and their fantasically expensive accessory kits are the draw, but don't forget: you can make things for your doll out of paper and tape and shoe boxes! Sure you can. And sometimes you can even find limited-time accessories and kits at budget-friendly places like Costco, proving that your doll really is "just like you." The kits are OK, I think; they trade on the brand name, but they are a reasonably cute product, delivering the promised goods. This one was easy to put together, but my daughter lost interest and never hung the wreath, which is clutting my kitchen counter at the moment.

My daughter has one American Girl doll. We don't have any accessories or books or do we know the back story, just an overzealous Grandmother that wanted her granddaughter to have the 'latest thing'.She is 9 and dolls aren't really her thing anymore, so we weren't attracted to the fact that it has the American Girl logo or photos on it, she just like the wreath. The kit included everything we needed to make the wreath pictured, plus extras to decorate to her liking; cardboard, tissues, ribbon, felt, leaves, beads, buttons and even glue.We aren't the craftiest family and she doesn't enjoy making this exactly like pictured, so what we came out with was a very loose interpretation on a flowered wreath and a more abstract, artsy door hanging. But that's what I like about these kits and my daughter, both can be open to interpretation.It was easy for her, at 9, to open the box, do the crafts and clean it up herself (although she needed some reminding and prodding for the latter). It was nice that everything left over could be repackaged back into the box for the next craft project.