Intro post & Whipple review! ^___^
Name: Gicela
Nickname: Gia
Age: 20
I've loved deco-den since I was about 13. My friends loved Japanese fashion & culture and it rubbed off on me. :] Never really got into doing it myself or had the time until about a year ago. I've decorated my phone, iPod case and have made lots of sweets jewelry for my lolita outfits. :] My deco creations can be viewed on my Tumblr: www.scenesrushingby.tumblr.com [I hope that's okay, but I just want to make this short!]
Hello everyone! I bought the Whipple kits available at Toys R Us and I figured I'd do a review. It's kinda long since there was so much to review but I tried to condense it. I apologize in advance!! >___< I hope my cut works! *fingers crossed*
So, I found these in the Arts and Crafts area of the store. Currently they are on sale in stores for buy one, get one free so I grabbed quite a few sets and extra crèmes. @____@ Online, the sale is make any purchase on Whipple products over $19.99 and get a free crème.
- Pastry Design Studio set:
Price: $24.00
Contents:
1. large Whipple crème
the crème baggie comes with an attached coupler, decorating tip, and cap. it's the size of the replacement baggies that are sold separately.
2. 2 heart shaped mousses [strawberry, chocolate]
Nice heart shape with textured layers to distinguish between chocolate and mousse. I didn't care too much for these.
3. 2 macaroons [four halves] with eye-pin inserted
These were pretty cute actually but I don't like that they came with the eye-pin already inserted. If you don't want to use them in that way you'll have an ugly hole left [the pins are quite thick]. Then again, I suppose you could easily cover them with crème.
4. 8 assorted fruits [strawberry, kiwi, orange, cherry, banana, and mango]
Okay, so in reality it only comes with FIVE assorted fruits. The "mangos" are these weird peach colored beads. LAME. Also, I haven't figured out what the other fruits are supposed to be. Unless more of the beads are supposed to count as fruits. =___= The strawberry, cherry and orange were nice and shiny. The kiwi and banana were kind of dull. They reminded me of those wooden food toys for little kids.
5. 2 two layer cakes [four layers; two yellow, two pink]
The tops of the cakes are white; I'm assuming this is so that it blends well with the crème? I don't know. These are also textured.
6. Decorating tip and cap
7. 2 pancakes
For some reason, they are stacked like a cake on the box. I know pancakes are stacked but it looks more like a cake to me. To each, his own I suppose? These have a toasted top and are textured around the edges. They're pretty neat, actually.
8. 3 chocolates
These were okay, but again, they come with an ugly hole pre-drilled in them so you can use them as key chains. There's a flower shaped one, and one that says "Sweet" with a heart next to it. The square one says "Whipple Chocolate" and has a pretty border around the edges. The hole in this one is in the shape of a heart, so it wasn't as bad as the others.
9. ball link chain
10. Assorted beads and rhinestones
The rhinestones were kind of bad quality. Kind of like the kind you can buy at the drugstore or dollar store to do your nails with. The beads were those plastic multi-faced beads. There were also some small round pastel beads and pearls
- Cupcakes set:
Price: $12.99
Contents:
1. small Whipple crème:
I opened this one right after the Pastry set and expected to see the same sized crème bag. I was shocked to find a TINY bag of crème! It was like half the size of the big one. ;___;
2.Rhinestones, ball link chain, assorted beads.
This time the beads were a bit larger and there was a large red bead included to be used as a cherry.
3. Large cupcakes:
When I say large I mean LARGE. These were REALLY freakishly big and were a really funny shape. They were too fluffy on top.
4. Decorating tip and cap
5. Smaller cupcakes with eye-pins inserted:
These were pretty cute and just the right size. These also have the eye-pins inserted in them. -___- Sigh.
6. Star, heart, and flower cutouts:
These were actually pretty nice! They're like fondant decorations some people make, I guess. I'm rather fond of them. :3
-Fruit Tarts set:
Price: $12.99
Contents:
1. small Whipple crème
2. Decorating tip and cap
3. Fruit pieces
Lots of fruit! There were two whole strawberries and one cut in half, four bananas, two kiwis, a cherry and an orange slice.
4. Tart shells with one inserted eye-pins [chocolate, cherry, and custard]
I REALLY liked these tarts! They're actually pretty heavy. The fillings have a nice sheen. The crusts are shadowed nicely on the outside and also have a nice texture. One of the custards has an eye-pin. The other three are freestanding.
5 Rhinestones and beads:
More awful rhinestones and a bunch of these weird small silver beads. Not sure what you could use them for.
6. ball link chain
-Whipple replacement crème
Price: $6.99
I would REALLY advise anyone buying a kit to buy extra! Once you scrape all the crème to the tip of the bag [I used a ruler], there won't be much left, ESPECIALLY in the smaller baggies. The bags come with a cap and a stopper. The kits come with the decorating tips. I have yet to try and see if you can add your own tips though. The crème is a little soft, in my opinion. It could be the tip I was working with but it was just really hard to get a nice, defined shape,. When I first squeezed it out it had that annoying clear gel and it dripped and made a horrible mess -___- It's not as sticky as silicone, which I did like. I find that silicone is often too sticky and it makes it harder to for shapes [for me, at least]. Maybe I'm just too picky xD It's brilliant white and has a nice sheen. I tried out a macaroon and when I put my crystals and peals in, they kind of sagged and I had to push them back up again. It's only a tiny bit smelly; it sure beats the crazy smell silicone has. I checked it this morning and it dried pretty hard and lost some of it's sheen but it looks way better than silicone/acrylic blend caulking.
So overall, the sets are pretty decent. I'd give them a 3.5 out of 5. My favorite set was probably the tarts. I don't feel like they're entirely worth the money but the good thing is that these could be easily jazzed up with your own cabochons, flatback pearls, or fimo fruit slices! Although some pieces are too big or heavy to actually be used to deco smaller things like phones, they turn out to be pretty adorable for boxes or just as decorations.
I hope this proves to be useful. If you guys have any more questions, please ask! Thanks for reading! ^_~