Crayola Model Magic 2 lb Bucket Assorted Colors

I like both the white and the assorted colors. With the assorted colors, you can mix them together to create a marbelized effect. I thought that was neat. With the white, you can paint your project or use any kind of markers to color your masterpieces any way you'd like. It's not as limiting as the colored clay.

My kids spent two hours playing with this stuff the other day. My only complaint is that Model Magic breaks easily. Let's say you make a clay elephant with a delicate trunk. You can rip that trunk off with a tug; however, you can run the broken piece under the tap for a minute, then glue it back on. You can't hide the crack, though.

I would recommend Model Magic over Play-Doh, which is messy beyond belief, or regular modeling clay, which can be tough for small hands to work with.


Better than Play Dough   December 31, 2000
John Veneruso (Vancouver, WA USA)
37 out of 38 found this review helpful

My kids love this stuff. Its squishy like soft foam, molds easily, actually sticks to itself (unlike the new version of playdough), and best yet...it dries to become harder and more resiliant...great for making dollie cups, bowls, furniture, googly monsters, and much more. It works great with cookie cutters because the stuff doesn't stick to anything but itself. It is water soluble and washes out easily if it gets caught in a bunch of spilled water. Actually water is its big downfall...it will turn to mush if it contacts water...however you can use this to your advantage when it becomes somewhat dried out. Just wet it slightly under a faucet for a microsecond and then kneed it back and forth to regain its original fun consistency. Once its air dried, water doesn't affect it much. If you want to return something that has dried back to the original squishy state, simply leave out on a plate on the porch when it is raining or on an extra humid day for several hours. Cleanup is the best part of this stuff. It doesn't crumble like play dough and the kids seem to make a fraction of the overall mess.

The only downside is that it dries out after a couple hours of play and you either have to renew it with the water trick or trash it. If you mix all the colors together, you end up with a red/brown color.

Its been a great addition to the "art" supply stuff at home.


Fun, easy to use, very light, tactily very interesting   November 16, 1999
14 out of 14 found this review helpful

My kids have alot of fun with this spongy clay. They love mixing up new colors and creating figures that even float in the tub. I like that it doesn't have an odor and doesn't make much of a mess.

One bad thing (as it is with most modeling clays)is that little pieces (like attached eyes and noses), after the figures have dried, fall off really easily. Otherwise, the figures are pretty durable.


Crayola Model Magic really IS!   September 2, 2001
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

Our kids just love this. It is clean, easy to use, and lightweight. An added bonus . . . a ball made with Crayola Model Magic will bounce very well when dry. Downsides: When dry, it is still full of air, so creations are still a bit delicate to rough play - found this out the hard way! Also, even at Amazon's prices, this is a lot of money to spend for a consumable product. We will buy this again, but we will buy playdough more often because of its affordability.


Amazing Material for Animation   September 9, 2005
AnimatedAdventures.com (Seattle, WA, USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

This stuff is incredible. It's a soft, clean, dry "clay" that molds easily and dries to be as lightweight as styrofoam. For clay animation, its very useful for creating props or parts of puppets that need mass. Since its so much lighter than modeling clay, you can build up your puppet with Model magic first. Then once its dry you can costume the puppet and cover the exposed areas in clay. A tip: plasticine modeling clay doesn't stick to dry Model Magic very well. Wrap a sheet of tinfoil over the Model magic first to make a "skin" that the clay sticks to securely. You can also paint it or color it with regular markers.

Note: very thin pieces of Model magic break off of dry sculptures. Avoid making long extended pieces from your sculpture, unless you can put wire inside, like a chenille stem.