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When I first received the package of Mr. McGroovy’s Box Rivets I thought to myself “what a clever idea.” Hours of fun with the kids building cool projects to play with and play in.

I really wanted my trial to be successful, because I do think that the idea of this product is a good one, and it seems to offer an inexpensive solution to the building of various types of playthings, from lemonade stands to playhouses to forts.

BUT- I had much different results than I had hoped for.

It’s not that the rivets don’t work- they do. They also hold rather well. However, as a mom who is often alone with the kids and prefers an easy-to-manage project, I was not pleased.

To start with, you must access the Mr. McGroovy’s web site to get plans. That was easy enough. But they do not provide any pre-cut parts (which would be very helpful) or pre-fab projects for you to purchase and construct.

Instead you have to seek out your own cardboard boxes- BIG cardboard boxes. You need to find appliance (refrigerator, washer) sized boxes, and multiples for most of the plans.

Just trying to take my kids (age 3 and 5) with me to Home Depot to pick the boxes up, and to even think about trying to load them into my mini-van (even broken down, they take up a lot of space) was a daunting task for this less than patient mom.

Now, once you manage to pick up boxes, you need to follow the “blueprints”- measuring and cutting (and let me tell you, box cutters and small children do not mix!) to get the pieces set up to fit together.

No problem for some, but I found the plans a little hard to follow and the preparation excessively time consuming. By this point you are still not even close to assembly.

Now in all fairness, it is officially confession time. I got frustrated with the project and gave up on the cutting and assembling of one of the McGroovy plans. Instead, I used a kit from Bed Bath and Beyond that I already had at home for a cardboard lemonade stand so that I could test these rivets out before my kids were in college.

Oh, and did I mention the need for power tools?

Yup, the directions require you to pre-drill holes for the rivets to pass through. Now I am a fairly handy girl and my husband has a garage full of tools (some of which I know how to use, like the drill) that I can borrow, but I imagine that other moms (and dads) may not be so fortunate in that department.

You really do need to pre-drill or punch a hole through the cardboard- they won’t just poke through otherwise. Once you have your holes drilled, the rivets themselves are very easy to use. They snap together quite easily, without much force necessary (though my 5 year old was not strong enough to be able to help).

Once my project was assembled, it did hold together fairly well. The length of the rivets do allow for some wiggle (i.e.- the rivet was not super snug if I only had 2 layers of cardboard, but it also is made to accommodate more thickness if needed), but this was not a big deal.

Disassembly (i.e.- taking apart the rivets to re-use) was not as easy as snapping the rivets together, because they do fit together so securely. You have to use a special tool to pull them apart (which I did receive with the rivets).

This was a bit of a pain but not bad, and it was nice to have a product that you can re-use.

The long and short of it for me is that the concept of the rivets themselves is pretty cool. If you have time, the right tools, and very patient children, then I could recommend this product for you.

However- time, tools, and patience are key (as is the availability of large cardboard boxes), and in my household it just didn’t work out well.

Even with the lemonade stand I had purchased, it took a long time for assembly, and the kids were not able to help much. I got really tired of the rousing chorus of “mommy is it ready to paint yet?” The time and effort did not come close to balancing out the reward with this project.

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