Doodle Crate Subscription Box Review & Coupon – Wooden Clock

October’s Doodle Crate was a Wooden Clock!  Doodle Crate is one of the latest additions to the KiwiCo family. Geared toward kids 9+, it inspires young makers to learn new skills and gain creative confidence through craft and art projects. This box is also excellent for anyone wanting a craft subscription (even adults). It’s not just another craft project every month – it’s a whole new technique. In my experience, this is the best “arts and crafts” box for older kids, tweens, teens, and adults.

The box includes an information booklet that gives a great overview of the technique to be learned — this month’s technique is “wood working”.  The project portion of the box involves painting and fastening wood together (there is no sawing, drilling, planing, etc).

It comes with everything you need to complete the project, except for a few basic items from your home — paper towels, a cup of water.  Once you are finished, you’ll need to supply a AA battery.  Though not strictly necessary, we also grabbed some additional paint brushes, a paint palette for mixing colors, some cardboard to cover the table, and some washi tape for making patterns.

Every crate comes with a booklet — they just updated the format from a fold-out pamphlet to a true, [staple] bound booklet.  The booklet has some great background info on the history and evolution of wood working as skill and trade, the informative sections being similar in educational content to a middle school textbook.  Doodle Crate is great at giving some perspective and inspiration for their projects.

The instructions are clear and easy to follow and broken down step by step.  We did mix it up a bit, however.  We wanted to do a pattern on the bottom layer, so we painted before constructing the clock.  We had to painted more surface area than we would have following the steps in order, but we also lessened the risk of accidentally painting layers other than the one we were working on.  The layers of the clock had more than a single hole, allowing for creative placement of the layers.

Extension ideas are included with the instructions when there is room (it depends on the project).  For the clock project, they  didn’t include a true extension project; instead, they offered some suggestions for embellishing the appearance of the clock, such as creative placement of numbers, or adding key hooks.

My daughter wanted to do a heart, so I took the easy way out and grabbed a cookie cutter to use as a pattern.  I held it tight to the surface while she painted.

We also found that washi tape was perfect for creating a striped pattern on one of the layers.  My daughter is under the recommended age for this box, but she usually manages quite well with a little assistance.  The tape was a great way to make a pattern for her that she could paint on her own.  We wanted to keep the clock to look neat, and this was much neater than freehand painting.

Our painted layers.  Note the multiple holes in the larger layers — they are for making off-center placements.

We opted for concentric panels, rotating 45 degrees each successive layer.  The panels stuck together with just a little glue, and it dried very quickly.

A bolt is included so you have a piece to preserve the hole for the clock mechanism.  It is discarded during final assembly.

I thought this turned out wonderfully, and the clock mechanism works perfectly.  I love the look of the striping, especially, and wish we had done an additional layer in that pattern.  My daughter had lots of fun, and she was able to do most of it by her herself, with some help taping, edging and inserting the clock hardware.

Visit Doodle Crate to subscribe or find out more! Save 30% on your first month with coupon code MS30  (or Kiwi Crate  and the KiwiCo family subscriptions Tinker Crate and Koala Crate).