Aging Gracefully

Given the ongoing trend of “kids growing older younger,” toy retailers have been searching for new ways to grab older kids' attention and keep them coming back into their stores. Fortunately, arts & crafts companies are aiming to do much the same thing. By diversifying what kinds of products they offer, crafty manufacturers hope to appeal to more kids—and more categories of kids—than ever before. For girls, this means a major push towards wearable art and room décor products to capture tween interest; for boys, this translates to more specialty kits created especially for the “pre-tween” category in themes like cars, monsters and science. Licensed products are also popular these days, with everything from NASCAR to Cars, Dora to Spongebob, Superman to Cinderella. The market is even seeing traditional toy companies get into the crafting area.

“We're not seeing the [arts and crafts] category go flat,” says Lisa Ritchey, public relations manager for Cleveland-based Creativity for Kids. “The thing that we're competing with, obviously, is the computer stuff, the video stuff, all of that. But even so, we're just seeing that parents really are looking for a balance in their kids' lives. Because I think people are getting a little fed up with how much time kids are spending…where they're not really doing anything hands on or doing anything to use their imaginations actively, to generate anything. So I think these kinds of things go in circles, and we're back on the upswing again. We're just seeing a lot of interest in the product.”

Lynn Brennan, general merchandising manager for Silver Dolphin Books, San Diego, agrees. “Arts and crafts will always be a perennial seller since kids love to tap into their creativity, get a little bit messy and design something of their own.” Silver Dolphin specializes in colorful activity and novelty books for kids as well as fun, educational nonfiction.

However, “age compression has definitely affected the craft industry,” says Valerie Snow, product manager of dolls and basics at Fibre-Craft, Niles, Ill. “The product we develop today is much more sophisticated than it was 10 years ago, in both complexity and aesthetics. The creative activity category is very fashion-driven and we need to keep up with current trends and continue to introduce innovation in our product offering.”

“Kids today are getting older younger and therefore have developed more sophisticated taste in terms of fashion selection and room design,” notes Brennan. “The trends are also probably being driven by the billion-dollar marketing industry that is capitalizing on this fast-growing young and hip generation.” Companies poised to take advantage of these trends are the ones likely to attract the older kids—primarily girls—to their products.

When it comes to tween crafts, “anything that's wearable continues to be hot, including jewelry, clothing and accessories,” says Ticia Will, director of product development for Alex, Northvale, N.J. “Sewing, knitting and other 'classic' craft activities have become very popular. Girls are crazy about wearing and displaying fashions and accessories that they made themselves—that have a handmade look. These are not your grandmother's crafts! The skills are timeless, but the projects are completely on-trend.”

Alex is introducing a number of new fiber kits this year, including Sew Fun (a kit with a girl-sized sewing machine), My First Sewing Kit (for younger girls), a Super Embroidery Kit and a Simply Needlepoint kit. “Some of our biggest successes are with our classic craft products,” Will says. “Knitting, crocheting, embroidery and sewing kits do more than just provide materials, they teach a skill.”

Many other kit companies are enjoying the resurgence in interest in fiber crafts among kids (and even teens), which has come on the heels of a recent knitting craze with adults. According to Anne Akers Johnson, senior editor at Klutz, Palo Alto, Calif., “Wearable crafts, jewelry, all that stuff is really strong for us. When I settle on my projects, I always run them past teens, and I'm amazed at how, in Crochet, the hat, the scarf, the wearable [projects] are the ones that they're really most excited about.” Klutz has a number of new wearable art book kits out this year; Johnson says she expects new offerings in 2007 to continue to expand in that area.

“I think there's always an urge to want to make something and so I think the yarn crafts have always had that appeal and I think continue to have that appeal. [Kids] want to be creative,” says Peggy Henz, head of design at Chicago-based Shure Products. Shure has introduced three new fiber craft kits this year: Learn to Knit, Learn to Latch Hook and Learn to Weave.

Henz says jewelry is also a big category for Shure's tween customers. “I would definitely say that beads have become very popular and the jewelry-making trend has become more popular. We all know that as children get older faster they're not so much interested in playing with the dolls and so on, but they are interested in accessorizing.”

At Fibre-Craft, brand-new kits are debuting in a line called Make Believe Made By Me, a dress-up kit that incorporates crafting elements. “The girl gets a cape, a wand, two little wrist ribbons and a headband and there's a little purse as well, and in the purse are extra flowers, glitter glue and sequins,” Snow says. “You take the extra ingredients and decorate your outfit to make it your own. You get a successful project every time…you [just] add some extra embellishments. A lot of times craft projects get really complicated and the kid gets frustrated and isn't able to replicate what they see, so this is really easy…it can be done in 15 minutes.”

For the tiny fashionista, Silver Dolphin offers a kit for aspiring fashion designers ages 7 and up that aims to teach “the basics about fashion and what it takes to create your own line of clothes—from the basics of accessorizing to the importance of choosing the right fabric and colors,” says Brennan. Each kit comes with stencils and more for girls to create their own collection. Next spring, the company is also launching Fashion Design Studio, which invites girls to decorate their jeans and T-shirts with sequins, patches, glitter and other accessories.

“This is one of our lead series for spring,” Brennan says. “[This category] is here to stay, so the challenge is generating a new approach to art that will resonate with the ever-changing tastes of kids today.”

The room décor area also seems to have a special pull for tween girls, as many arts and crafts companies have been discovering. “We're looking into tweens, knowing it is the fastest-growing segment of the market with disposable income,” says Fibre-Craft's Snow. “Room décor is huge! A tween spends the most time in her bedroom and really wants to make it her own. She wants to be proud of her space and put personal touches into the décor.” For late 2007 and early 2008, the company has quite a few “concepts in the hopper” for this audience, Snow says. “We're looking at [room décor] as one of our categories moving forward for tweens.”

“We're finding, still, that anything to do with room décor is hot, so we have quite a few new kits that we've brought out,” says Creativity for Kids' Ritchey. The kids division of Cleveland-based Faber-Castell USA adds dozens of new kits across multiple categories each year. This year, look for Beautiful Beaded Mirror, Magnetic Memo Board, Decoupage Diva Jewelry Keeper and Princess Letters at retail.

Alex also offers a number of new decorating kits in the room décor area, including Knot-A-Quilt, Paint a Paper Lantern, Butterfly Clip Strip and My Ballerina Stool. “Room décor and home fashions continue to be successful for us,” says Alex's Will. “Girls love to personalize their own space.” So far this year, the Knot-A-Quilt kit is “a runaway hit,” Will says.

At Scratch-Art, Avon, Mass., the hottest new products are the Scratch Magic Light Catcher kits, which allow kids to create “stained glass” art at a very low—under $5—price point. “It's a beautiful thing for a child to make and hang in their window, and that has done extremely well for us,” says Debra Loeser, vice president of marketing and product development. “Room décor, I think, is definitely hot.” The kits—which are appropriate for boys or girls—debuted this year with four designs. Two more designs will be introduced this fall as well as a deluxe kit.

Capturing the interest of boys—who tend to gravitate away from arts and crafts products much earlier than girls do—presents unique challenges to the craft companies interviewed by Playthings, although each made a point of detailing which products in their lines were designed especially with these customers in mind.

“We do have items that are boy-focused, with space and animal themes,” says Snow. “Boys like to craft if you put it in front of them, but it's not their first choice.”

“Traditionally, the category of arts and crafts skews more girl, and boys have had a tendency to leave the category a little more quickly than girls,” notes Jeff Rogers, director of portfolio marketing at Easton, Pa.–based Crayola. “But part of it is, we're not sure there's been enough relevant, appropriate and exciting products for boys, so we certainly view that as an opportunity to offer that to them.” Crayola tends to be gender neutral overall, but a few new hot products from the company's Color Wonder and Color Explosion lines look promising for the boys market, Rogers says. Crayola is hoping that the Color Wonder Sprayer (a mess-free airbrushing tool) as well as the Color Explosion Spinner (which is geared specifically for older kids and tweens), will be a big hit at retail this holiday season.

“We have sort of gone out of our way to have some kits that cater to the boys market,” says Shure's Henz. “We have a wood burning kit, which has been very popular, and we have a metal tapping kit, which is new this year…We have made the effort to appeal to some of the boy topics, and then we have some unisex items which I know are being bought by both boys and girls…basic crafts, window art, glass tile painting. Tye dye is always popular.”

Creativity for Kids' Ritchey has found that creating complementary kits—where boys and girls get their own versions—works best for them. “We've tried very hard to stay gender neutral but sometimes that presents a difficulty from the boy-selling aspect of it, because with girls there's a little more room in where they'll go with color palettes and things like that, but for boys it tends to be more fixed,” Ritchey says. “So rather than try to split the difference and [try to] hit on something that will be attractive to both boys and girls, for some products we've decided to do a girl version and a boy version, and we seem to be having success with that.” Recent kit duos include the wood-painting sets Aloha Girl and Sport Shapes as well as the Creature Caps and Crafty Caps kits.

“There is a boy market out there, it's just finding how to tap into it,” Ritchey says, noting that Creativity for Kids' most popular product for boys this year has been the Monster Trucks Custom Shop kit, which follows up 2005's popular Fast Car Race Cars wooden car painting kit. Additional offerings in these areas are likely for 2007. “We had to try to look at crafts a little differently and think of what's more appealing to boys, because boys are a little more action-oriented. Although it's not part of the pure arts and crafts that we do, [we] recognize that it's a good way to bring boys into the category again.”

There are plenty of great products out there for boys though it's a matter of finding them, says Scratch-Art's Loeser. “We really do try to keep boys in mind…especially with our Draw and Learn series, where we have the outer space and animals and dinosaurs and sea life.” Though all of Scratch-Art's kits are meant to appeal to girls as well, “we like to round out our offerings by having inspiring kits for boys. I think that a dolphin or a fish [design] would be intriguing—we're not talking about flowers and hearts—the [kits are] really very nature oriented, and so I think boys and girls gravitate towards them equally.”

Another way manufacturers are appealing to boys is in the create-a-toy category, such as with the relaunched Creepy Crawler Bug Maker Oven and bug-making molds, which is being reintroduced this year in time for the holidays from Jakks Pacific, Malibu, Calif. “Creepy Crawlers is one of the few craft-type activities on the market that is popular with young boys,” says Tamre Logan, senior vice president of marketing for Flying Colors, Jakks' art activity division. “What boy doesn't love creating gross insects, bugs and creepy characters? Plus, our newly-designed Bug Maker Oven looks creepier than ever.” Jakks' is hoping that the evergreen product stands the test of time and will appeal to today's boys. “Fathers and grandfathers enjoyed playing with Creepy Crawlers in their youth and now want to share the experience with their own sons and grandsons.”

Play Along Toys, a division of Jakks, is also getting in on the action with an expansion of its Doodle Bear line scheduled to hit retail this fall. The new line features updated versions of the Doodle Monster, which includes the Tattoo Monster, Doodle Dinosaur and the brand-new Ultimate Gross-Out Doodle Monster. Jeff Shamburger, director of marketing at Play Along, expects the latter to be the biggest hit with boys.

“It kind of gives the boy an opportunity who wants something a little more 'boy' like, a little more gross, a little more 'guy,' but who also still wants to do some arts and crafts type things,” Shamburger says. “I think in terms of excitement for boys, the Gross Out Monster would win in my book, partly because it really pushes the envelope a little bit more on the whole arts & crafts...between pulling his eyeballs and his brain and his guts out and all of this, you've got so many more surfaces to doodle on, you can hide some of them away because they can all go back in there behind Velcro. You can pull them out and gross out your friends and your mom.”

“We were personally a little surprised to find out from research just how many boys were actually buying the original Doodle Bear, so it was a natural progression,” Shamburger says. “But there was also a bit of an insight there that hey, this maybe isn't just a girls' item after all. And with that knowledge we decided to go out and say 'Wouldn't it be nice if both genders could have their own specific product?'

In the six or seven years since Play Along has been around, we certainly have not been an arts & crafts company. At the same time, we're always looking at trends and growth segments, and obviously the whole arts & crafts activity category has been doing really well for a number of years. I would like to hope (and maybe this is wishful thinking) that in every kid there is some creativity there that they're just dying to express in some way.”