Urban Canvas {Review & Giveaway} | The Shopping Mama

I?m excited to introduce you to a super fun (and eco-friendly!) new toy on the market. Urban Canvas makes real-life, three-dimensional sculptural canvas for your children to color, collage, and decorate. And who am I kidding, I had a lot of fun playing with it, too!

Urban Canvas is a green toy company that aims to inspire and delight children through art activities and creative play while being environmentally responsible. All our products are conceived with the simple idea that what is good for the environment is good for our children, and that what they learn in the arts helps them grow intellectually.?

My son and I created our own Spring Butterfly from the Urban Canvas line of toys. The butterfly is made of cardboard and comes in several pieces that can be decorated and assembled to build a huge 3-D sculptural butterfly. One side of each cardboard assembly piece comes pre-decorated, and it?s really, really pretty. The other side is plain white and ready for your child?s imagination. (Although I suppose that if your child really wanted to design both sides, she could collage over the pre-printed side, too.)

We used crayons for the butterfly?s base (this is how it?s able to stand on it?s own) and cut up a bunch of magazines to collage onto our butterfly wings. Ben got a kick out of coloring on the cardboard and kept holding the pieces up in the air and coloring them ?up high?. The cardboard was perfect for Ben to creatively color in this manner because it?s not your typical flimsy cardboard that will get bent out of shape easily. It?s very sturdy and will hold up to being actually used as a toy once it?s assembled. I pre-cut colorful pictures from a Lands End catalog and Martha Stewart Living magazine (can you find multicolor leggings and chocolate-peanut butter swirl brownies on our butterfly? ha!) and together, Ben and I collaged the butterfly wings. I found it easiest for our purposes to use larger-size paper pieces and let them hang off the edge of the wings. Once the glue had dried, I cut around the edges of the wings with scissors. It was Ben?s first time using glue and he ended up with pieces stuck on his feet and elbows, and one stray triangle on his forehead. Sometimes being creative also means getting a little messy!

Once our decorated butterfly wings, body, and base had dried, I assembled them. (An older child will be able to do this on their own, but toddlers will need help.) The cardboard pieces all fit together snugly and securely. The finished butterfly can be used as a toy or a display piece. How cool would it be to have several of these hanging by a window?!

In addition to the butterfly, Urban Canvas makes a Forest Grasshopper which has a wire form that allows children to position the grasshopper in different positions. The grasshopper has one side pre-printed and one side plain white, just like the butterfly.

Urban Canvas also? makes architectural building toys.? Your imagination is the limit with these building sets! The Metropolis Train Set comes with two train cars that can be linked together. One side is pre-printed and one side is plain white and ready for your child?s crayons, markers, and imagination.

The Cityscape Building Set is unlike the other Urban Canvas toys in that it is pre-printed on both sides. It?s a modern building set with various city scenes, skyscrapers, and buildings depicted on each piece. The cardboard pieces fit together snugly and can be built both straight up and out in all directions. There are even special rooftop pieces that are specially shaped. Of course, just because there are city scenes depicted on the pieces doesn?t mean you are limited to building skyscrapers. Ben and I built a giraffe, camel, and dog with our set. Your imagination is the limit with these toys.

To Buy or Not to Buy

To Buy? Urban Canvas? product line is perfect for fostering creativity and imagination in your children. They are eco-friendly, high quality, and built to last, and are a whole lot of fun to decorate and play with.

Or Not to Buy? I can?t think of a reason why someone wouldn?t want their children to play with these eco-friendly toys. They?re awesome!

Shop! Urban Canvas products can be purchased directly from their website. The Spring Butterfly is $25.

How to Enter: Leave a comment telling us your which Urban Canvas toys are on your child?s wish list.

Earn Extra Entries: Valid only after leaving mandatory entry comment. Please leave a separate comment for each you do.

Giveaway ends August 24. Open to US mailing addresses only.

?Thanks to Urban Canvas for providing samples and the giveaway prize suite.

Source: http://theshoppingmama.com/2012/08/urban-canvas-review-giveaway/

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