Twist and Spin Jewellery Maker - Review

As part of our runner up box of toys for the Toys R Us 'do you have what it takes to be a toyologist' competition we had a Twist and spin jewellery maker, by flair.
priced at £19.99 normally, however on offer at Toys R us for £17. 97

Get creative and make funky jewellery with the Twist and Spin Jewellery Maker! Create stylish necklaces, bracelets and hair accessories at the touch of a button with the twisting and spinning motion

To start with C was surprisingly disinterested in this, which did surprise me a bit, the box looks great, a nice sized box, sporting a pretty girl covered in bangles and hair accessories, right up any 7 year old girls street. however C wasn't overly impressed, later tho when she came back to have another look she was all up for putting it through its paces, we opened the box, a biggish box, with not a lot of content if I'm honest, the first thing you need to note, is that you will need 2 AA batteries, which do not come supplied.
You get a Twist and Spin jewellery making unit, a bag of beads, a bundle of cord, 8 fasteners, two clips a threader and a instruction leaflet, C was eager to get making, the picture on the box shows some beautiful necklaces, bracelets and hair braids, C read the instructions and started off spinning the cord, unclipped it and it unwound instantly, she was obviously unimpressed, she tried again, the unit has several switches which spin in different directions, hold the cords still or allow them to move, and without having them set into the correct positions you will always get a unravelled end result. C tried her hardest but couldn't master the spin sequence and so set about making herself a bracelet the 'old fashioned' way - simply threading the beads onto a single piece of thread, this used the majority of the beads, which was a shame, the beads are nice chunky good quality pretty beads, but it would have been nice to have a few more of them, whilst C was busy doing that, I re read the instructions and tried again with the spinning, and did manage to make a couple of nice spinned pieces which did not unravel, the only other down side is the fasteners are big n clumsy and do distract from the overall prettiness of the finished jewellery.

Since having the set C has been back to it a couple of times and proceeded to make a couple of pieces, although we are now almost out of thread and beads.

Overall I think this is a fairly high priced set, although better with the slight discount at Toys R us, the frustration a child could get from the unravelling could possibly be a source of upset, and the amount of extras you get with the set really don't amount to much, maybe a cheaper bead set without the novelty twist and spin unit would be better
Over all rating 5 out of 10.