Color Bloomz - Mega Pack

My daughter has been asking for these for a few months and I finally broke down when i saw them on sale on amazon. I initially thought these might be something neat but was disappointed when I saw that only very few of the pieces actually bloom. I'm also weirded out by the fact that i think the bloom is a fungus. Money is better spent on something that kids can play with again.

Quick shipment, product is as described. Went to more neices no complaints. I have no more in put on this.

We bought these to experiment and play around with... our little girl is rather crafty but this Color Bloomz kit was too big of a mess and just didn't grow out the way we expected it to. I would not recommend this.

This was a great price when compared to many other stores. I bought three for gifts for girls that love to do crafts. They enjoyed making this.

This was a Christmas gift and the kids loved it. Very entertaining on those boring indoor days, good activity to keep them busy.

My daughter has wanted the Color Bloomz kit ever since she saw it on TV. I finally broke down and got it for her (they are pretty expensive), because as a scientist, I found the concept pretty cool. What is it?The Color Bloomz kit is based upon the concept of crystallization and color diffusion chromatography (I will explain in a bit what this means). It contains two different types of paper displays, those that have a printed design on a glossy paper and those that are made out of a type of adsorbent filter paper that can draw liquid into it by capillary action. The paper forms come as one big sheet that you will have to punch out in order to retrieve the specific pieces. The filter paper is white, and you use water-based ink markers to draw on the paper. These colors will mix with the liquid as the solution is sucked into the filter paper and then, as the liquid dries, it will form colored crystals (the crystallization and chromatography part). It is very cool.The solution it uses is a potassium salt solution. After you color the filter paper, you place the paper in a plastic holder with some of the decorative pieces. The filter paper will sit in the solution and start to draw up the liquid. Within an hour, crystals start forming on the edges of the paper as it migrates to the edge and dries, but it takes a good 18 hours for all of the liquid to get sucked into the paper and dry. The kit recommends that you place your pieces on a spot where you want to permanently display it before you add the solution. Why? Because the crystal formations are so delicate, a good, stiff wind will knock them off. If you gently turn the display, the crystals fall off. If you bump it, a lot of crystals fall off. Some of them just fall off all on their own! This fact is the major drawback of this "toy". You seriously cannot move it at all! Thus, once you make this kit, you are done. It cannot be moved or reused.When we made the color crystals for the first time, we only made a small display (thank goodness). It is helping to stretch the kit into multiple days of fun as we can play with the colors and different drawing patterns to create cool crystal designs. When drawing on the filter paper, just remember not to combine too many colors together. My daughter combined the green, red and blue and her crystals ended up murky brown-ish. I used blue on the inside and green on the outside of the form and came out with a pretty beautiful crystal display with gradients of blues and greens. However, patterns do not work. Maybe stripes, if the colors are far apart, but if you make swirls, dots or any other shapes, the colors will run together.I eventually tossed the entire display away, as there wasn't much more to be done with it. At some point, we will make another mini-display, but already the novelty has worn off. My daughter hasn't asked to play with the kit since the first time we did it. I also worry that the pens will run out before we complete the display, but my guess is you can use any water-based markers to make the crystals. I haven't tried any others yet, but if I do, I will re-post.Overall, this is an interesting art project with some cool science behind it. However, once you make it, it drops crystals all over the place and gets messy. And because you can't move the display without seriously damaging it, it isn't the most practical kit. I am not sure the price justifies the fun.

When I first had the opportunity to try and review the Color Bloomz Mega Pack, I had to admit I had no idea what it was. I do not watch kids TV shows too often and I must have missed the multitude of commercials for this product. My kids on the other hand knew exactly what it was and were quite thrilled with it.For parents like me who have no idea what this product is, Color Bloomz is basically a variation of growing a crystal garden. The activity set is centered on a plastic structure with open sides and top. The bottom of the structure contains large indentations that the instructions refer to as wells. The activity kit contains some various decorations (feel like plastic coated paper) which come in an underwater or jungle theme. Also, there are some white cutouts to match each of the two themes and some blank pieces that can be cut to whatever shape desired. The children color these white cutouts with the provided markers. The cutouts are then placed amongst the above mentioned theme decorations with the bottoms of the cutouts in the wells. The wells are then filled with a packet of the provided solution and overnight, colored crystals begin to grow.The concept of the project seemed quite neat and the kids were excited. The directions were not bad, but for someone like me who did not have a clear idea of what the end result actually was, they were a bit hard to follow at first, especially with three excited children. Once I had an idea of what to do, the children chose a theme and I gave each child 1 punchout. The directions say to color the entire thing and the sides. I have no idea how vital this is, but following the instructions, I made sure the sides were colored as well as the faces of the cutouts. This posed little challenge to my 9 year old, but my 6 and 5 year olds had issues getting the cutout completely colored (and they got marker all over the table in the process. Paper towels or newspaper might be in order for younger children). We arranged the pieces in the plastic holder and added the liquid.Crystal growth was evident after about an hour. After leaving the activity set overnight, crystal growth had completed. We chose the underwater theme. The crystals grow only on the edges. After everything was said and done, the crystal growth made the cutouts look a bit like oddly cut pieces of cauliflower. Some crystals did detach from the paper under their own weight. The project is indeed fragile and even moving the project on the table to dust resulted in more broken crystals.The children did like this project. However, once the project had been completed, there is nothing more than can be done with it. The resulting crystal display is very fragile and cannot be moved or bumped. The only thing that can be done is to disassemble it and start a new one. My children have expressed no desire to do this project again. It just sits in the corner now.With the given supplies, there are enough cutouts and chemicals to make 3 full displays (18 packets of chemical and 18 cutouts) with 6 cutouts per display. If you do not want to completely fill the display, there are enough miscellaneous decorations to fill out the display. In my case, I only used 3 cutouts and it looked fine.Overall, I thought this was a neat project, especially for kids that have never seen a "crystal garden". However, the product can only be done a limited number of times due to the number of supplies included. My children expressed no interest in repeating the project after the first time.Keeping in mind that the product seems to have limited interest with the kids and it can only be used a small number of times, I would only purchase the product if priced accordingly with these factors in mind. If the price is right, it is a cool project and would make a cool gift.