Mud + Bloom Subscription Box Review

*This is a collaborative post – for more details, see my Disclosure Page  Here at A Rose Tinted World we absolutely adore getting outdoors, whatever the weather. We love nature and our garden. So when the lovely Anja at Mud + Bloom asked if she could send us one of their gardening and nature boxes for 3-8 year olds, we jumped at the chance. Here is our Mud + Bloom subscription box review.

#AD – gifted – We received an amazing Mud + Bloom box to review and sample. However our opinions are our own.

Mud + Bloom Subscription Box Review

Who are Mud & Bloom?

Mud & Bloom is the brain child of Anja, who just over 18 months ago left her full time job to pursue her passion for setting up a gardening business. Although Anja loved experiencing other monthly craft subscription boxes with her own children she looked around and realised that there wasn’t a gardening alternative. So she decided to make her own. Mud & Bloom was born.

Each Mud + Bloom subscription box contains four seasonal activities for the month. Four crafting, planting and nature activities perfectly suited to bring your child closer to nature. Studies have shown how important nature is to childrens’ wellbeing and happiness. It helps them stay fit and healthy, improves their concentration and can even help with their mental wellbeing.

The boxes are as environmentally friendly as possible, with plastic free materials/packaging and even organic seeds. Billed as being perfect for a busy parent, the box comes complete with most things included or easily available. You may need an egg box, yogurt pot, or jam jar for some of the activities, but compost is provided.

Our Review Box

Mud & Bloom very kindly sent us their February box in exchange for a review.

The box was the perfect size and shape to fit through the letterbox, and we were very excited when it landed on the doormat!

Unboxing the package, we were thrilled to find

• 6 pretty and brightly coloured pages with an activity on each.
• a mysterious blue tissue parcel wrapped with pink tissue
• a sheet of thicker red paper
• two craft sticks
• different coloured long ribbons
• some thin string
• some hemp twine

Delighted to find that there were two types of seed to plant we started this activity straight away!

Planting / Gardening Activity

Growing seeds are a great way to teach children patience. Most children find it hard to understand that you cannot instantly have everything. Sometimes we have to wait, so having seeds to watch each day is a really important lesson.

The February`Mud + Bloom subscription box has aubergine and cosmos flower seeds to plant, so we found out the 2 sheets with these activities on for our instructions. The instructions are really clear and easy to follow, giving a full idea of where to place the seeds once planted, when to transplant the seedlings, how much to water and when you can expect to see your plant fully grown.

We needed to provide an egg box or small yogurt pot to plant the seeds. And we then got to find out what was in the mysterious blue tissue package!

The main advantage of the Mud + Bloom subscription box to me is the fact that compost is provided, but I didn’t realise that compost could come in such a small package. Inside the blue tissue were four small brown pellets that you were instructed to place in water for 10 minutes until they were fully swollen. Then you can rip off the outer soft netting and you have a perfectly sized pellet of compost for planting.

We really enjoyed planting the seeds.

And then we labelled them using the craft sticks. They have been placed on a sunny window sill, where they hopefully will sprout in the next couple of weeks. So exciting!

Ice Decorations

The next activity we looked at was Ice Decorations. February is typically the month for ice and snow, but we were a little disappointed that it has been unseasonably warm up here in Leeds. For the sake of this review we decided to revert to the alternative of using our freezer to make these.

On one of our visits to the local park we picked up some berries, small twigs and leaves. Elizabeth was very exited to see that some of the twigs could be like her favourite character ‘Stick Man’.

We took them home and placed them in some small dishes. I cut the hemp twine provided in the box and made some hanging loops by placing the ends within the water. We also made a third bowl using some cake decorations and edible glitter.

The next day, we eased out the ice decorations and placed them on our patio. You could also hang them from tree branches. They looked really pretty. We could see them from our dining room and Elizabeth loved watching as they melted over the next couple of hours.

Make Your Own Kite

Also in the box is the chance to make your own kite. Now, I haven’t had much success with kites in my time, so I was a little sceptical of this, but we did make up the kite as instructed. It actually turned out really well.

But then we sadly haven’t had very much wind or suitable weather in which to fly it. We had a 30 minute window a couple of days ago when I got to fly it…but then it rained again, so no pictures were taken.

Also in the Box…

We often go out for walks in local parks, and on one of these excursions we took the bird and flower spotters also included in the box. It was lovely for Elizabeth to be able to spot along with walking. We did see some blue tits, though sadly a lot of the flowers mentioned on the spotters aren’t yet out. However we can keep on doing this exercise again and again, so there is so much value in having these.

So. Our verdict?

All in all I am mightily impressed by everything in this box. It is so full of really good information and a really good prompt for learning about nature with your child. It is fun whilst being educational. As a busy mum, the compost pellets were absolutely perfect because they really were so quick and easy to use. You can even use these boxes if you don’t have a garden. Like us, we have a yard with a patio. My little girl who is 3 thought that every activity was so exciting. And that is worth it in itself.

Where do We Get A Box?

You can get a box on a month by month basis by going to Mud+Bloom

Do check out Anja’s blog while you are there, for some other wonderful seasonal ideas for getting your child closer to nature.

Or you may prefer to gift or buy a subscription. Mud + Bloom Subscription boxes come in two varieties:

• the singles box – like ours, has enough materials for one child to do the activities.
• the siblings box – has enough materials so that two children can do everything, sharing the instructions etc.

The singles boxes start at £7.95 per month for a 12 month subscription, £8.95 per months for a 6 month subscription, or £9.95 for a single box

The sibling boxes start at £11.95 per month for a 12 month subscription, £12.50 per month for a 6 month subscription, or £12.95 for a single box.

You can skip a box at any time.

We absolutely loved our week of discovery using our box from Mud & Bloom. And I am sure that you will too! Do let me know how you get on!