We purchased the Crayola® Folding Tabletop Art Easel when Nicholas was four years of age and kept it through turning seven.

It just so happens the starting age of this is four and is well suited for older kids up to ten. This is non-toxic with the markers and paint washable. The crayons and watercolors are certified CP with the markers and pencils certified AP. To clean the clothing that might have the watercolor paint on, it is advised to not use pre-wash or chlorine bleach. This should also be kept away from wallpaper, painted walls, finished and unfinished wood and vinyl.

For project ideas you can check out the website www.crayola.com. The back of the box lists some project ideas such as making 3 x 5 cards to guess what one is drawing, hang up your art on a clothesline and dry erase transfers. The colored pencils were made in Brazil and paint brushes made in Dominican Republic. The contents include the following:

Easel
Two purple trays
Green stand
6 colored pencils – (blue, orange, red, green, yellow, brown)
8 crayons
4 dry erase color wipeoffs washable markers – (red, blue, green and yellow)
1 paint brush – (thin, yellow)
cloth – for wiping – ours was tossed out quickly
paper – 8 x 11 white paper – about as thick as copy paper
four non-slip foam stickers – black, we lost one
Dry erase surface – the other side has tic tac toe, a face to draw, color squares
White watercolor tray – 8 colors – (brown, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and black)


The blues are more a light shade (aqua) and not a navy. Our set no longer contains any crayons since they got mixed up with our other collections so I cannot mention the exact colors offered within this set.

The Crayola® Folding Tabletop Art Easel is easy to set up. All the pieces fit into each other by slots. In order to use the easel correctly the two purple trays must be situated just right in the red container. This can work two ways because if you do not want to use the green stand you can move the trays out a bit and turn around to then slide the paper under The Crayola® clip and start drawing, painting or coloring. The clip is also removable and easy to snap into place. When you are storing this you place the clip and paper supplies under the trays. We had paint stains on many spots to The Crayola® Folding Tabletop Art Easel but they were easy to remove with a cloth or a wipe.

The four square black non-slip foam stickers are used on the bottom of the red easel to keep this in place. This requires a child to be sitting at a table when utilizing The Crayola® Folding Tabletop Art Easel. The set is red, the surface to place the paper is blue and the clip and stand are green. To use the stand you would lift up the red and blue sections and place the stand in the slots provided. The two purple trays can be removed before doing this to have the supplies close at hand and not having to turn this around and over. The green stand also fits under the trays for storage purposes or on top.

Both of the purple trays have a small section for the watercolor tray. When the easel is being used there is a small groove that will hold two markers and one pencil. The trays can even slide in upside down. The one down fall to this is if you are using it for portable reasons it gets loud with the items moving about in there.

A year later I found the Pooh Craft Kids Carry Around Activity Easel that bombed rather quickly. Since Nicholas preferred his Magna Doodle sets than this easel it spent much time in the box instead of out and displayed on the desk. This is a nice first set for the child to keep all art supplies together and create masterpieces with crayons, markers and pencils. The pencils are the small size and never needed sharpening. The markers require a second push to make sure the cap is on tightly. A few years ago we got a dry white board that contained the same kind of markers. I tested the markers and the blue and green ones no longer worked. The blue easel part is the only one that did not hold up quite well over the three years we had The Crayola® Folding Tabletop Art Easel. My children outgrew it so we tossed it in the garbage except for the pencils and markers that were working. If we had room for more clutter I would have kept the trays as well.

Adapted from a review previously published on Epinions




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