If you love crafts and Christmas then we’ve got a really fun review for you today, for a DIY wooden puzzle kit to build a cute Christmas tree with music, lights and movement.
You might remember I’ve made two miniature room kits from Rolife already – a Mini Kids Room and my very customised Super Cute Kawaii Bedroom Office – so I was delighted when they offered me a bigger kit to try. I was quite taken with the new Music Dreamer Christmas Melody Tree, which is a larger wooden puzzle kit and promised to be a fun challenge.
It was still much bigger than I expected and I was very intimidated unpacking everything. Not only is there a big stack of wooden and card sheets, each full of pieces (the larger sheets are around A4/Letter size) but also a circuit board, motor and other scary mechanical things. I did wonder if I was in over my head here!
The instruction booklet is also A4 with 28 pages filled with lots of complicated diagrams. However, I was encouraged by two things – unlike my previous kits, the instructions are in English, and…there’s no glue! Instead everything slots together and even the paper boxes have tabs that click into place. Where some things do need to be stuck down, there is double-sided tape, already cut into strips, and glue dots, which are much less messy and don’t need time to dry.
The instructions ease you in with some simple paper boxes and then Santa in his sleigh. This introduces the general idea of how the pieces are joined together, which will be used for the entire tree. All the sheets and pieces are numbered to keep you right and they pop out easily. As long as you keep checking the diagrams to be sure you’re connecting everything in the correct order, you can’t really go wrong. The wooden parts all have tabs that click into their corresponding holes and there are sometimes decorative card pieces to stick on top. After finishing Santa, I felt pretty confident about completing the kit and it was much faster than I expected, compared to the miniature kits.
Things got a little trickier once I started building the base, which holds the music box, electrics, lights and motor. I somehow missed the section on the very first page about testing the electric parts before you start so had to disassemble the base later on to be sure all the connections were good (it actually turned out that the first cable I tried wasn’t working properly). The USB-C cable is not included but most people should have one already. I like that it doesn’t use batteries and you can use something like a small rechargeable power pack if you want to display it somewhere away from a wall socket.
The next level adds clockwork and you even build a little spanner out of wood pieces! This was where things started getting quite difficult to assemble as you need to click multiple tabs together into holes that you can’t really see. It took me a few tries but I got there in the end. Some of the pieces also needed a lot of pressure to click together and my fingertips got quite sore. Occasionally I had to use the included sandpaper or a sharp craft knife to shave off a bit of the tabs to get them to fit, especially when they had a printed paper layer on top that made them thicker.
Look at the little train! It’s on a track so the clockwork will make it run through the tunnel. This was probably my favourite moment – once you place this on top, it stops being a mechanical project and starts turning into a cute decoration.
So many cute little houses, trees, snowmen and deer are dotted around the base of the tree. These are placed in all directions, and even around the back, so it will look good from all sides.
The final big section is the tree. This is really quick to build and I actually started to feel a bit sad that it was almost over. There are also some decorations to stick on to the tree with glue dots. A couple of these actually started falling off later so I ended up using some superglue.
Adding Santa on top is the final touch and this was actually quite difficult as the last tab didn’t fit at all and then crumbled into pieces. Luckily it still holds together safely without it but I may need to find a fix for next year as it would better to remove Santa before storing the tree away.
Here’s my finished tree – isn’t it amazing? I felt really proud of myself once everything was working. Pressing the power button once starts the music and lights, and sends Santa and the train moving in opposite directions. Press it again and just the lights stay on so it looks pretty as part of your Christmas decorations. You can see my tree in action later today on Instagram but below is a more polished video from Rolife that also shows some of the build process and gives you a better idea of the scale.
I really have no complaints about this kit as it was fun to make, while also having a few elements that felt like a real challenge and stopped it from being too repetitive. The instructions could sometimes have done with a little more explanation, but I always managed to figure it out and never got completely frustrated. I’d definitely make another Rolife kit.
This kit has a medium difficulty rating and a make time of 3 hours but it took me a lot longer – more like 3 hours per day over 3 days. The age level is 14+ but I think you could still make this with younger kids once you’ve put together the more complicated parts.
The price is on the high side at £59.99 but I do think it’s worth it as it kept me entertained for so long and feels very sturdy and something that should last for many years. It looks lovely out on display and I know I will be happy to see it when I get out the decorations every Christmas. There’s also smaller Christmas kits available for a more affordable project including a house, snowglobe and Book Nooks.
The Rolife Music Dreamer Christmas Melody Tree kit is available now from the Robotime online shop, which ships worldwide from China. You can also find Robotime kits at various stockists worldwide. Look out for special offers too – there’s currently up to 75% off in the Robotime Black Friday sale!
(Kit was provided by Robotime for review but all words, photographs and opinions are my own.)
Leave a Reply