It has been a little while since I last tested out a musical instrument DIY kit, and we have had a Decorate Your Own Xylophone Kit from Baker Ross at home for a while. My daughter has been asking to do this kit for a while. She loves both music and art, and so these Decorate Your Own musical instrument kits are perfect for her.
Baker Ross are an online craft shop. They do not have a physical presence so you do need an internet connection to be able to shop with them. I generally order direct from them (click here for the Baker Ross website), but you can get their kits from other online retailers like Amazon. Personally I have always found that the price you pay is cheaper when you order direct from their own website. I love a Baker Ross craft kit. They are great little activities to do with the children that fill that odd half hour, or hour when you have nothing else planned. I have bought all sorts of kits from them for the children, from seasonally inspired sticker scene kits, like a nativity sticker scene or a Halloween haunted house scene, to wooden birdhouses or big hotels to paint and put together and, of course, a number of DIY musical instrument kits. Just before the long summer holidays especially I usually put in an order for a few kits that I can whip out at a moment’s notice when I just can’t think of anything else to do with the children. My 2 are now 7 and 10, and so the items I pick out for them these days are very different to craft kits (I’ll be honest generally sticker kits) that I used to get for them when they were small. I must admit that I think the kits’ appeal to my eldest is now starting to wane, but my 7 year old has a good few years before she starts to lose interest in these kits.
There are now quite a few Baker Ross musical instrument DIY kits that you can get for your children. Like all Baker Ross kits they always come in multi-packs rather than singles. If you order from their website pay attention to the quantity you are ordering as there are some packs with large quantities of craft kits, intended, I think, for schools to purchase. You can see some of the other kits that we did last year here.
DIY Wood Block- Decorate Your Own Kit from Baker Ross
Baker Ross DIY Star Wooden Clappers Kit
Baker Ross DIY Wooden Hand Bells Kit
So our Wooden Xylophone kit came in a pack of 2 – very handy with 2 children! What do you get in the kit? This is a very simple kit. You are not making the xylophones, it is just a decorate your own xylophone kit. You should be aware that you do not get anything to actually do the decorating with, there are no pens or paints includedYou get:
- Wooden xylophones individually packaged
- 2 wooden beaters per xylophone
Just a quick note of caution here before I tell you what we did to decorate the xylophones, if you are doing these with small children in the house, please be aware that they are not suitable for under 3s because they do have small parts which could be a choking hazard – particularly the beaters, which are not easily swallowed in themselves but the end of the beater could come off and become a choking hazard. It’s not a big thing, but the card packaging attached to a plastic envelope that the clappers are in is secured with staples that could prick small fingers if they aren’t careful with them. and finally there is a packet of silica gel in the plastic package that your children must not put in their mouth. Basically don’t do this activity with a child under 3, and young over 3s should be supervised closely when doing this activity. Older children supervise them as is appropriate for your child.
So, what can you use to decorate your xylophones with? We have done a few of these kits in the past and used all sorts of materials to decorate them – paint, washi tape, chalk markers, paint pens and felt tips. Washi tape comes off easily and quickly becomes quite irritating, it takes a good 2 or 3 coats to properly paint these instruments with normal school paint as the wood they use is incredibly porous. I have found, surprisingly, that the best thing to use to decorate these wooden instruments is just felt pens. They work really well. However, on this occasion we decided to try out our acrylic paint pens. I set out 2 packs of paint pens for my daughter to use, but she decided to just go with the metallic colours. She thoroughly enjoyed planning her design, both what she was going to with the tone bars on top of the xylophone and the extra decorative detail she wanted on the side of it. You can paint the beaters as well, and my daughter chose to just paint the head of her beaters, leaving the shaft of the beater plain wood.
These wooden xylophones are a sort of functional instrument. They are played by using the wooden beaters hitting the tone bars – I say tone bars, they are different lengths of wood attached to the frame. Now these bars do produce slightly different tones, with, as usual, the longer bars producing a lower pitch and the shorter bars producing a higher pitch. But these are in no way comparable to what a normal xylophone would sound like. It is OK, and as a toy it is fun to decorate and gives you an idea of what a xylophone might sound like. Don’t, however, think that this is what a proper xylophone should sound like, this kit only really gives you an approximation of what a xylophone should sound like!
I bought this Decorate Your Own Xylophone kit direct from Baker Ross and at the time of writing these are still available to purchase from Baker Ross at a cost of £4.95 for a pack of 2. You can visit the Baker Ross website by clicking on the link below:
If you have enjoyed reading my blog post, thank you. I am always looking for ideas for the blog, so would love to hear from you with suggestions for topics you would like me to cover in the future. Also, if you would be interested in supporting me to keep this blog running, buying the books to review here, and supplies to make the DIY instruments, for example, I would be absolutely delighted if you would consider buying me a coffee using the following link: Buy Me A Coffee Thank you!!
getkidsintomusic.com 
Leave a comment