I am a born engineer. From taking apart my childhood toys and not quite putting them back together, to taking apart mum’s typewriter and definitely had too many spare parts left over when I put it back together. I always liked tinkering and building things.
When Cutebee approached me about their Christmas Wish Store Book Nook Kit, I was more than happy to say yes. My only condition was that I get the Grace of the Forest set as well, because little Miss Arraiya would love the unicorns and butterflies.
First Impressions
My daughter was very insistent on me getting started on the Grace of the Forest as soon as she saw it.
I have review another brand of book nooks about 15 months ago. The first thing I notice with the Cutebee is that the layers of wooden pieces are all quite a bit thicker than the last brand I reviewed. That wasn’t the only difference, Cutebee’s kits include an emery board, a more generous strip of clear tape (for keeping the wires in place) and other accessories that I will cover off later.
The print on the panels were sharp, with vibrant colours. Cutebee built in some tools that you can pop out to help with the process of removing pieces from the sheet better. Another thing I notice is that some spare parts are provided for bits that are easy to lose or damage. Lastly, acrylic pieces are provided to seal off any openings to keep it dust free.
Something that I came to realise well into building the kits is that it is definitely not for younger kids.
Building – Grace of the Forest
I requested this one specifically from Cutebee and my daughter fell in love with it at first sight. Between us it took about 3.5 hours all up over two nights to complete working together for about 2.5 hours and the final stretch finished by me alone.
With the thicker pieces, I took a bit of a punt and got Arraiya to pop them out as I call out the numbers. Bearing in mind that she is only six years old but with amazing fine motor skills, she was able to pop them out with a little bit of effort and a lot of care.
Note to others if you want to involve your younger kids like this, don’t let them pop out the pieces that is designed to bend. Missy broke one of those getting them off the runner and luckily it was in a spot that I could fix and reinforce and is completely hidden away.
In the end we did break a couple of pieces, but I was able to fix them with some reinforcements behind the scene.
In this Grace of the Forest book nook, there are quite a lot of elements going on. Brooks and glades in layers going into the forest. The illusion of the flowing water is built up over a many layers stepping back into the scene. From the top and sides are trees, overhangs. There are butterflies in many places.
Looking into the scenes, Cutebee’s design includes a signpost, mossy rocks, purple plants and fungi boulders. These are all fun little elements for the little ones to spot.
The number of layers made it a more complex task to merge the sides together to create the box. I ran into a bit of problem when pieces were jammed up against each other and I could not close up the sides of the box properly.
This is not unexpected, taking your time and checking the position of pieces will help get everything together eventually.
The LED lights for this scene is cleverly positioned to create a magical feel. With this particular one, there is a stainglass-seque scene at the back which is beautifully lit up.
Overall, this one was not too hard to put together, and came together beautifully. My daughter absolutely loves it.
The finished book book measures 21.6 x 7.9 x 16 cm (HxWxD). In total it has 89 components and is rated a medium difficulty.
Building – The Christmas Wish Store
This scene is … massive. Opening up the packaging and seeing the number of panels gave me an idea of how much is involved. Looking at this and the Grace of the Forest side by side, the Christmas Wish Shop is a good 3 centimetres wider, a little taller and deeper.
What sets the Christmas Wish Store apart from all the book nooks I have built is that it comes with a music box, a rotating Christmas tree (manual not motorised), tinsel and a few figurines which Miss A immediately absconded with. Even now with the book nook completed, she is refusing to put them in the scene.
Again each of the runners are pretty thick which is great. Arraiya helped out on and off a few times, but in the end the entire build took me about 8 hours over quite a few days. There was a lot of elements involved, Christmas trees, gift boxes, a train track and a mailbox just to name some.
Just to up the difficulty level, there are a lot of small pieces with this one which required more care and glue. The box says this one is 14+ as an age guide, and it proved to be a little challenging even for me.
In particular this scene required quite a bit of work with glue, and I made some mistakes along the way with the positioning of some pieces which are glued down rather than inserted into pre-cut holes. That resulted in some hasty fixes behind the scenes where it could be hidden.
My advice for this one is to spread out the work and take all the time you need. Break it up into manageable chunks and allow plenty of time for the glue to set.
The end result, even without all the figurines in place is pretty magical. On the back is the wheel to turn the Christmas tree, and underneath is the winder for the music box. It’s a really lovely touch to have these components in but also made the overall project a lot more complex.
The finished book book measures 23.1 x 10.9 x 18 cm (HxWxD). In total it has 273 components and is rated a hard for difficulty.
Other Thoughts
Cutebee does not provide any glue in the package, and they recommend white (craft) glue or alcohol glue. I had quick drying superglue on hand which works just as well, as long as you don’t need to reposition things after the pieces are affixed together.
Gripes
My main one here is that the instructions are quite small. Admittedly I am getting old and it is hard to see in a certain distance. I had to take to the phone camera to enlarge sections quite a few times to work out what is going on.
This is in particular with the laying of the wires for the lights, I have to constantly check that I have put the right lengths in the right positions. Also I was left guessing whether I needed to tape the wires down or whether they were only run to a certain position to be used later.
I think if the instructions were a bit bigger and easier to read, I would run into less problems.
Conclusions
The Cutebee book nooks are something pretty magical once it is done. It took a bit of effort to put together, and it was nice quality time spent with my daughter showing her the magic of creating something with her own hands, rather than some game on a screen.
Whilst Cutebee provides almost everything needed, right down to a bit of sanding board to trim the pieces if so desire, you will have to BYO glue due to it being a contraband for air transport (along with batteries). In both scenes there are quite a number of pieces that needs gluing down, vis-a-vis inserted into one of the laser cut holes. I also love that there are no tiny screws to deal with to affix any parts together.
These pieces are mainly decorative things like butterflies on a tree, or Christmas presents, particular decorations where a post would not be accounted for. These pieces add a lot of detail and magic to the scene so don’t be lazy and grab a tube of glue to work with.
Both Arraiya and I really enjoyed creating these scenes together, it was a great father and daughter bonding time.
The Cutebee book nooks and other creations are available from their website. You can get 8% off your purchases using the code DRNCUTEBEE. For full disclosure this is an affiliated link where I get a little commission on each sale, which goes to keeping the lights on at DRN.
DRN would like to thank Cutebee for providing the review units. These do make really unique and cute gifts for the holiday season.
