For a dollar, you get a pretty impressive 50 sheets of scratch-ready cards, which are 3.625” both wide and high. Obviously, the cards aren’t very big, but they are still large enough to make some pretty cool designs on, and perfectly sized for kids to mess around with. It also comes with a bamboo stick, shaped like a pencil, although many other things lying around the house can be used as a substitute should you end up losing it (toothpicks, keys, etc.)I was at Dollar Tree a few months back when I happened to catch a sight of these in the checkout aisle. I’d heard of scratch art before, and it seemed pretty intriguing, and I’m always interested in trying new things with the family. After all, even if it sucked, I was sure it would at least keep the attention of our five-year-old for a few minutes (because that’s the maximum amount of time anything holds his attention).

So how do these work, for the uninitiated? Just as the name suggests, you “scratch” into the black-colored front, revealing the holographic layer underneath. Essentially, it combines the satisfying feeling of scratching off a losing lottery ticket, with drawing. I don’t know who thought this would be a fun idea, but somehow it is.

Only costing a dollar, I was expecting there to be some problems with the cards: Either some would be already partially-scratched off due to poor quality control, or the black layer would require great force to scratch away, but neither of those were an issue, at least in the pack I got. Our five-year-old had no problems creating a few designs of his own.

The bamboo pencil with one of our son’s designs.

Unfortunately, these don’t seem to be widely available in stores, which drops the score down a bit. I’ve only seen the holographic type once in store; they also have one with a rainbow-colored backing that I’ve never seen. That’s a shame, because I would gladly purchase more. Sure, you can order them from their website, but with the minimum order requirements (30 per case), that’s probably more than we’d go through in an entire lifetime. Even weirder: the holographic ones can’t be shipped for free to a local store (but the colored ones can).

Overall: 8/10. If you’ve ever wanted to combine the fun of scratching off a losing lottery ticket, with the excitement of drawing, then this set is for you! Actually, it honestly is pretty fun, and a nice change of pace from the “normal” family activities. Scratching can be done with the included bamboo “pencil”, or with anything you have lying around the house (toothpick, keys, etc.) Unfortunately, outside of the one time I saw these in-store, I haven’t been able to locate them since. They’re available on Dollar Tree’s website, but you’ll have to pay for a case of 30, which is far too many for this household. A great product that would be even better with more predictable in-store availability.