Thin Stix ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

The Pencil Grip, Inc. has been a favorite vendor of this family since we reviewed their original Kwik Stix last year.  In fact, I gave them a Redhanded Homeschool High Five, we had that much fun with them!  After that review, I purchased a pack of the Kwik Stix Metalix.  Those are especially fun because they give projects a bit of sparkle.  Today, I'm going to tell you about Thin Stix 6pk of Classic Colors.

Thin Stix, and their brother Kwik Stix, are non-toxic tempera paint sticks that look and work exactly like a glue stick.  You pop off the cap, twist the stix up to use it and twist it back down and cap it to store it.  The Thin Stix also have a clip, like a pen does, on the cap.  Thin Stix come in both a six pack and a 12 pack, metalix and neon six packs, and a pack of 24 which includes the colors from a 12 pack plus the metalix and neon.  The six pack of classic colors contains red, yellow, green, blue, black, and brown.

The Thin Stix arrived right before we headed to Tae Kwon Do one day, so I brought them in with me to look over.  Luckily, they came with a flyer in the box, because Merrick wanted to get started right away.  It was the only paper I had with me, surprisingly.  He was busy all through TKD and even finished up when we got home.  Kid art supplies that don't make a mess and are easy to carry around with us is a real bonus on the days we are in the car a lot.

 

We made some signage for our trip to the Cog Railway in NH earlier this week.  The Thin Stix were nice for writing and making more detailed drawings than we are used to with the Kwik Stix.  I make signs with them all the time.  Like when we had to replace one of the signs we hold when we cheer for Dad at a race.  I write them, the boys decorate them, and then they get laminated so rain and dirty paws don't ruin them.

I picked up this cool bin a few weeks ago, and as plans for our trip to the Cog Railway progressed, I threw in our original Kwik Stix, the Kwik Stix Metalix, and the new Thin Stix.  Then I added a decent pad of heavyweight art paper.  I think the medium weight would have been fine since the stix are mess free.  The lid acted as a writing desk and everything was neatly contained.  Well, until someone dumped the whole tray in the back and by the time I found out about it, they had rolled all over the back two rows of the van.

The bin also came in handy while we were preparing to leave the hotel.  Some of the boys' buddies dropped in and I kept them busy painting with our stash.

You can see some of the other ways we thoroughly tested out Kwik Stix original, too.  We used cardboard, dark and light construction paper, wood, and canvas fabric.  This time, I tried my hand at an art canvas.  It's sort of Starry Night-like.  It was fun to try this new (to me) art technique with the various Stix.  I did use Kwik Stix (for orange and white) and a couple of Metalix, too.  I'm probably going to have to invest in a 12 pack of Thin Stix since we really did miss the orange and white in several projects.

The Stix do take longer than 90 seconds to dry, but I'd say only 2 to 4 minutes, depending on coverage.  We seem to lay it on pretty thick.  It's still way faster and neater than actual tempera paints.  If you let the paint dry thoroughly, there is no problem at all with layering colors without mixing them or getting them on each other. 

The Pencil Grip, Inc. also sells school and office supplies, the best pencil grips (we love them here!), and cool fidgets that I plan on ordering soon, too.  They look really fun and I think will help my wiggly boys.  There's a page of free informational PDFs about the Pencil Grip on their website.




Thin Stix, Kwik Stix, Metalix, and neons are available at retailers like Amazon and Toys R Us.


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