Mila & Pheebs create stationery and activity boxes for children. They contain a mixture of stationery, crafts, stickers, and fun items, based around a different theme each month. It’s £10 per month plus £2.99 P&P.
While I love anything craft/stationery related, this particular subscription box is aimed at children. My six-year-old daughter Little C is crazy about stickers and arty creative things, so this is a perfect match for her.
Last month we had beautiful summer weather, so I could take all my pictures outdoors! This weekend wasn’t so fine, so it was back to crafting in the kitchen.
This month’s theme is Under the Sea. Of course the song immediately got into my head!
Here’s the mailing box. It’s thin enough to fit through the mailbox, and fits in an impressive amount of stuff!
We’ll see it all in a moment.
Anyway, on the inside of the lid is the list of contents, and on top is the lovely newsletter.
This is such a thoughtful addition to the box. It has fun facts and silly jokes (which never fail to make Little C chortle). It also has lovely bright colours, and the font is very easy to read.
And here everything is. Lots of blue, it looks so pretty!
I like the look of the stickers, especially that funny pink jellyfish.
Sea life holographic stickers, plus some of those sturdy foam stickers as well.
This is a pencil with an incredibly cute little dolphin eraser on the top. There’s no way I could ever use the eraser.
Mila & Pheebs always include a couple of little craft kits, and this one is a notebook to decorate.
It’s also the first thing Little C grabbed when we opened the box!
It contained a notebook with plain foam covers, and precut stickers to create the picture on the front.
Can you see what it’s going to be?
It’s Nemo!
OK, well maybe not officially Nemo, but it’s definitely a clownfish.
Not only is this cute and fun, but Little C adores notebooks, so she’s always happy to add to her collection!
I’m going to save the other craft kit for a bit later, because it’s incredibly cool. So let’s have a look at a few more goodies.
These dot pictures are great fun to make. There is a very generous quantity of dot stickers so there are always plenty over to use in their own creative efforts.
This is another regular inclusion: blank greetings cards.
Can you see the lovely wave embossed shapes on the top card?
I think it’s incredibly important for children to create their own cards. I have a stash of blank cards, and theses are always a lovely addition to the collection.
More paper creativity here. Some colouring sheets (using some of those lovely stickers perhaps?) and a criss cross and wordsearch. What a great way of including some sneaky educational value!
OK, here’s the second craft kit.
Such pretty colours!
This is a sand art picture.
Each of those little pots contains not paint, but coloured sand. The picture is adhesive card with the protective top layer precut into shapes along the black lines. The idea is you peel off each section and sprinkle or pour sand onto the sticky card to create your picture.
Peel off the top shapes.
And apply sand!
I’m glad Little C chose to sprinkle rather than pour. This is the first time there has been a slightly ‘messy’ craft, though it’s dry mess rather than wet mess.
And here is the finished product!
As you can see some of the sand escaped, but cleanup was pretty easy. And we had sand left over for future projects!
Last but not least, the tiny kawaii eraser they included with every box.
This little whale is going into our collection (they’re far to cute to use).
He also inspired the first use of the notebook and pencil!
So,another simply wonderful Mila & Pheebs box. These boxes are cheerful and fun, and the themes are neutral enough for any child to enjoy.
As well as a monthly treat, there are lots of other ways this box could be very useful:
It would make a very fancy party bag, or for keeping children distracted and busy at a wedding! The box would be a lovely surprise to take on holiday, and of course for a long-haul flight or train journey. It would even be a lot of fun in the car. Maybe not this exact one, as I’m not sure how compatible are cars and sand art. But this is the only time there has been any kind of minor mess-producing craft, so as a rule, you’d be just fine.
(As an aside, regarding playing with stuff in the car, we have one of these. Absolute genius, one of the best things I’ve ever bought for long journeys.)
The boxes would also be lovely to take away on holiday, as together with some colouring pens and blank paper you’ve got plenty here to keep children amused. Why not have them decorate the cards to send home?
Christmas is also getting closer, so this would make a lovely stocking filler. In fact, I really hope Mila & Pheebs will come up with something seasonal around Christmas, as I reckon this would be a perfect box of activities to keep your kids out of your hair entertain your kids on Christmas Eve!
The website says it’s aimed at kids from around six years old, but I reckon a four- or even three-year-old would have a lot of fun with this. Stickers and drawing suit practically any age! And even though the word games might be slightly beyond their skills, most kids are starting to look at letters and things at school, so they would still be a nice learning tool. Get hands-on folks!
Part of the point of a subscription box is that you are paying for someone else to do the work for you, and in this case it’s selecting and producing a lovely themed box of stationery. I do think it’s good value, not least because there are items that you can keep and use again and again.
As I said, this is great to have stashed away for a rainy day, especially round the school holidays (and half term’s not that far away!).
I don’t know about you, but there’s no way I have time to track down and organize something like this that brings little C a great deal of delight. These boxes are charming, reasonably priced, and offer fun, creativity, and even some sneaky educational value!
As a final note, Mila & Pheebs is created and run by a lovely mummy, Alexis, who also manages to wrangle gorgeous twin girls at the same time! Do take a look at her Facebook page, you’ll find info about her shop and company, and terrific behind-the-scenes stuff.
A different version of this review was first published on allsubscriptionboxes.co.uk.
