Review and Giveaway – Princess Linens’ Doodlebugz Collection

My kids love to color, as do most kids out there. However, one of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to their arts and craft activities has to do with crayon storage. We’ve tried bags, boxes, cups, tins, and cases of various sorts, with pretty much all the same result – broken crayons. Even leaving them in the boxes they come in doesn’t work very well since the boxes inevitably get beat-up and the crayons just get squashed inside by little fingers trying to fit them all in at once.

So I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to review products from the new Doodlebugz collection at Princess Linens!

What it is:

The Doodlebugz™ Crayola™ collection at Princess Linens is an ingenious way to combine easy crayon storage with easy access to each individual color as needed – not to mention some extremely cute accessories. There are several different items available – including crayon purses and aprons, crayon toolbelts and duffels. They also offer a Crayon Keeper and a Doodlebagz (includes writing surface along with crayon storage) as well.

Many of the items come in a choice of color options, and all of them can be personalized with your child’s name or monogram. Plus – each of them even comes with a set of genuine Crayola™ crayons and a pad of paper!

Here’s my take on it:

Courtesy of Princess Linens, we received two items to try out and review – a crayon purse and a crayon apron, both in pink. My daughters were completely impressed from the get-go! They were begging me to let them start coloring as soon as we received the box. And who am I to deny my kids the opportunity to be creative, so we opened the crayons, loaded up the purse and apron, and they set to work.

The apron easily fit any of my girls – from my 7-year-old, down to my youngest at age 2. There is a velcro fastener in back which allows for a customized fit very easily. And it was very simple to slide the crayons each into its own individual pocket – even chubby little toddler fingers could easily manage to pull the crayons out and put them back in by herself. Definitely a plus, as far as I’m concerned! She was thrilled with the purse to tote around, while my older two took turns with the apron most of the time, or just kept it on the table between them so they could both access the crayons. It was so easy for each of them to pick out the exact color she wanted, without having to dig through a box or bag for it.

The best part was when they were through however – all of the crayons fit neatly back into their little slots and clean-up was a breeze!  Here are a few of the creations that they made that day:

The only thing I can think of that may be a problem down the road is that there’s only a finite number of crayon slots, so a child who likes to use a variety of colors would still have to find an alternate storage source – possibly something like the Doodlebugz Crayon Keepers, which hold a greater number of crayons.

The bottom line:

The Doodlebugz Crayola collection is a fun and handy way to keep your kids’ crayons organized – either for at home or on the go. The tote and duffel offer additional storage for extra crayons or other toys – perfect for keeping little ones busy while in the car, or sitting in shopping carts or waiting rooms!

Where can you find it?:

The Doodlebugz™ Crayola™ products are available through Princess Linen’s website at http://www.princesslinens.com/doodlebugz2.shtml. You can order directly from the website. The totes, aprons, duffels and toolbelts all sell for $17.00 (personalization is extra), and the Crayon Keepers and Doodlebagz are $14.00 and $25.50 respectively.

And here’s a great deal – use the code “3GIRLS” to receive 15% off of your order of Doodlebugz™ Crayola™ products!

Would you like to try one?:

For my second giveaway (there will be more to come, so stay tuned!) as part of the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival this week, I am able to offer one lucky reader a Doodlebugz™ Crayola™ Crayon Apron like the one that we reviewed, courtesy of Princess Linens.  Here are the rules:

1. Enter by checking out the Doodlebugz™ Crayola™ site and leaving a comment on this post to tell me your favorite product.  Please don’t just say ‘choose me’, or your entry will be discarded.
2. The contest will run until Saturday, August 2nd at 11:59 pm EST. The winner will be selected through random drawing, contacted by e-mail, listed on this post and also submitted to PRIZEY.Fetch.
3. Please leave a valid e-mail address or other way to contact you! If you don’t wish to leave your e-mail address, please make sure that you leave a unique name and check back with PRIZEYWinners to see if you won. If the winner hasn’t responded within 3 days, an alternate winner will be chosen by random drawing.
4. If you’d like an extra entry or two, you can either subscribe to my RSS feed (click on the orange icon in the upper right sidebar), or mention this contest on your blog with a link back to this post – or both. Please leave an extra comment on this post for each of the extra entry options that you choose, letting me know – for a total of 3 comments if you do both extra entry options.

Good luck!

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED – the random number generator has chosen comment #152 as the winner:

Congratulations to World’s Greatest Mommy who said, “ The doodlebagz are so cute. I love that they include a mini chalkboard and chalk. My kids would love all this stuff.”! I will be e-mailing you shortly to work out the details.

Re-Visiting this review (February 2010):

I actually had forgotten about the apron that came with this set. My girls don’t color with crayons as often anymore – usually they use markers, so I hadn’t pulled the apron out in quite a while. I do use the little tote bag when we go visiting family or if I need to take my youngest to one of her sisters’ activities or practices. It’s a great size to keep a small notebook, pencil and a few markers in for her to color with – kind of like a little travel coloring kit. There are still crayons on the outside of the bag too and the girls will use them every so often as well. I think I’ll need to get the apron back out now too because even though my older girls are much too big to wear it anymore, it should fit my youngest perfectly. I think she’ll have as much fun with it as her big sisters did originally. 

This post courtesy of the Mommy Reviewers group at the Mom Bloggers Club.