PixelHobby Kits product reviews

PixelHobby is now my number 1 favourite hobby. It is very addictive. Within the first 2 minutes of sticking the fine pixels on the first base plate I was hooked! It is a very easy craft to learn.

I have always been a fan of cross stitch and mosaics, however I have never had the patience with needles or the mess created whilst doing mosaics.

I chose the Winter Fairy kit, which consists of 4 base plates, and it has 48 different colours. It took me two days to complete this kit, as once I started it I had trouble putting it down. That only happened when it had to stop to tend to my child! I found this completely addictive, and was rather sad when I knew I had nearly completed it as I knew once it was done it was done for good. I am now deciding on my second choice of kit to do.

I found the bent tweezers easier to use than the straight tweezers. The double sided tape made it very easy to see where the plate should sit on the template too. The instructions are very concise, right from setting up your kits to placing the finished base plates together and framing it.

I did find it a little time consuming moving from template to template as there were only 4 symbols to signify each colour per template. It could be better if there were more symbols per template to try and save paper.

The Pixels were easy to remove from the grids and place on the peg boards.

The kit is around $70 - $80, so whilst it seems a little expensive, you do get your monies worth, especially with all the left over pixels, which can be used for the next kit you do.

I love love LOVE this product and can't wait to get started on another kit. I truly would recommend this to anyone wanting to give something new a go.

I never got into things like cross-stitch or embroidery... needles just loved the taste of my fingers WAY too much for me to enjoy using them to do more than sew on a button or a quick bit of re-hemming the cuff of my dress pants. But I always loved the looks of the finished articles and wished I could do them too.

Now, I can... and my blood stays right where it's supposed to be!

Using a clear plastic pegboard, a huge array of coloured caps, and a lot of focussed time, I am now able to turn digital images into physical results without needing to spend any time worrying which will come first, anaemia or completing the work piece. The results are a delight to behold, and the methodology - though requiring a bit of practice to 'find your rhythm' - is simplicity itself.

You can choose to buy one of the pre-designed kits, or if you are adventurous, overly creative, or just have a very special picture you want to convert into something really neat as present, you can go to the website and download the converter programme. This will take in an image, scale it, crop it, convert it and even colour-match against the current palette of available coloured 'pixels' and generate a customised order for you. This saves you MOUNTAINS of time, and ensures you get everything you need to do the job just right!

While two of our reviewers chose ready-to-go kits, I wanted to see how easy it was to create a custom order... and to my delight I found it could hardly have been any easier... and once you have done one, the itch is there to do another... and maybe just one more... or two... or... I won't go into the fine details, because they will vary according to your level of computer skill, choice of image, etc... but I can say that once I had a handle on how it does the conversion, it was simple to convert a picture and get a really simple order pack made.

In due time, the kit arrived and I thought "I'll just unpack it and have a peek..." 4 hours later and I was well on my way to finishing the first of four baseplates, as the photo shows. I decided to go with a kit that had only 20 colours, to reduce the paperwork, but some pre-designed kits can have over 100 colours, so you will need to have plenty of patience, clearfile sleeves, and maybe an expectation of this being a long-term hobby project for you.

I was very fortunate in that, knowing these were for review and I was a total noob, the lovely folks at PixelHobby were able to add in tweezers, clearfile sleeves and a repositional tape roller. These are INVALUABLE kit to have. Whether your go for straight-arm or bend-arm tweezers is a personal choice, but I suggest you try both. Whichever one you DON'T fancy can always find a home in the first-aid kit if nothing else.

Overall, though priced little higher than my budget is happy with, the results are something I am extremely happy with! I plan to save up and do some of the smaller kits in future, as gifts for family and friends. I am particularly keen on the keyrings, as they are small, quick, and a great way to use up leftover 'pixels'... can't get better than that!

I am a complete craft nut, knitting, crochet, cross stitch, pretty much anything I can get my hands on, so this is one I was really intrigued to try.

Starting out with it, I must admit I was dubious as to how the finished product would look, I was a little worried about it looking "basic" but as it came together it looked better and better. By the time I finished my first base I could see that it really did look like something I could frame and hang up to show off. It was also very easy to quickly get the hang of removing the pixels and placing them on the base with the tweezers and the instructions are very easy to follow. I also liked that it's not a fast craft, it is something that takes time so for me, it was a great pleasure in watching it come together.

Looking on the website, something else I found good is the option to use left over pixels, they have free patterns for making keychain charms, you just need the little board. Also, if you are buying another kit, you can subtract off any pixel sets you already have so again you can use the left overs and lower the price.

However there was one point I didn't like and that is the charts used. You only place four colours at a time so there are individual charts for each set of four on each base plate. I had a two baseplate set and had 25 pages of charts. I personally would have preferred these either bound in a book or even better, use a similar method as cross-stitch and have just the one chart and different symbols for each colour. I've never had an issue with large cross-stitches doing this and it also feels like much less of a waste of paper! The number of charts and pages is the only reason why I did mark this down on contents and on personal choice, I do find it a little off-putting.

The price is pretty high on some of these but again I say it is similar to cross-stitch where they are an investment once you add up all the materials required, so taking that into account I would say the price is pretty reasonable considering what you are doing.

So overall, definitely something I really enjoyed and it is something I would consider investing in, particularly given there is the option to use your own design or photo.