Must-Have Markers for Your Art Cabinet
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If you homeschool, you have markers. If you have young children, you throw away dried-out markers. Either that or you spend time nagging your kids to put the caps back on the markers.
Not anymore! When the folks at The Pencil Grip Company asked me to review their new products, Magic Stix, I jumped on it. Why? Because they guarantee that their markers won’t dry out even if you leave the cap off for 7 days. I babysit my 3-year-old niece. Caps are going to get left off markers.
So, can you really leave the cap off of Magic Stix for 7 days without the markers drying out? Yes! I know because I chose one unlucky test subject and left it sitting out with the cap off for the full seven days. It worked just as well on Day 7 as it did on Day 1.
What I Love About Magic Stix
I would feel a little weird getting all kind of excited about magic markers – except that I know I’m talking to other homeschooling parents and we tend to get pretty excited about quality art and office supplies.
There are so many things that I love about Magic Stix. First, they come in a molded plastic storage container. That means no more destroyed marker boxes, plus it just makes me feel like I’m using a higher quality product. There is a little slot to hold each marker. Call me weird, but I like that.
It’s an octopus, y’all. See all the arms? And it’s a good thing the markers are washable because that’s blue marker on her arm.
Second, the colors! The colors are bold, bright, and varied. You’ve got your classic colors but Magic Stix also feature a couple of different shades of purple and green, and a peachy-coral color.
Third, they’re washable! Enough said. However, I’ll say a little more. When your 3-year-old niece decides to color your nice, molded plastic storage container that would kind of bug the neat-freak in you anyway, but she does it before you finish taking all your photos for a review of the product, it’s nice that the ink wipes off easily with a damp cloth.
The markers are also non-toxic and odorless with a vented safety cap.
And, you know, there’s that part where they’re guaranteed not to dry out.
Do Magic Stix Really Not Dry Out?
I know I already answered that but I wanted to go into a bit more detail since that guarantee is a huge selling point. No, the markers really don’t dry out. They’re like the everlasting gobstoppers of markers.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Magic Stix really don’t dry out. They’re like the everlasting gobstoppers of markers.” quote=”Magic Stix really don’t dry out. They’re like the everlasting gobstoppers of markers.”]
I chose the color I thought we would use the least – the pretty peachy-coral color – just in case. I shaded a small area of a piece of paper with it and labeled it Day 1. My first impression was how bold the color was. I really liked it.
Magic Stix are fun for artists of all ages. Yes, she likes to use her arm as her canvas. No, the body art wasn’t done with washable Magic Stix markers.
I picked a spot in my kitchen for my cap-less marker to hide for a week. Hide, you ask? Of course. This would be the one time someone would notice the marker with the missing cap and helpfully replace it for me.
To be fair, I let the marker rest on its side as it would had it been with its marker siblings in the case.
The only difference I noticed all week in using the marker was that it seemed ever-so-slightly dryer going on the paper on Day 2 than it did on Day 1. That could have just been because I was expecting it to be dried out, though.
I really thought the markers would dry out before the 7 days were over, but I noticed no difference at all the rest of the week. In the side-by-side comparison, the color seemed the same each day.
(Oh, and in case you’re wondering about Day 4, we wound up being out of town all day that day. I was exhausted when I came home and totally forgot about my marker experiment.)
The Magic Stix markers are a little more expensive than regular school markers, but much less expensive than other similar quality art markers. Because of their guarantee not to dry out, they’re a fantastic value for homeschools and classrooms because you’re not going to be replacing dried-out markers.
Head to Amazon to order a set Magic Stix for your art supply cabinet or a set for each kid!
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.