Creativity for kids: just add imagination.

• Position: What's New?

If ever a line of products was aptly named, it's the Creativity for Kids line from Faber-Castell USA, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. For years, consumers and their children have enjoyed the plethora of innovative and imaginative arts and crafts ideas that just keep on coming from the company's research and development department. Happily, it's more of the same this year with Creativity's promotion of "New Products Galore for 2004." The list is wonderfully long, so we'll just concentrate on a small handful of back-to-school selections.

Create a Coot Corkboard ($14.99) allows students to paint and personalize the frame and cork surface of a ready-to-hang corkboard. Plus, they can produce a stunning set of eye-popping "Opti Art" tacks using the reverse glass painting technique. The kit comes with a 11 1/2" x 9 1/2" wood-framed corkboard, seven colors of acrylic paint and varnish, fine point art brush, six Opti Art flat glass stones and tack& and bond glue.

The Wake Up! Alarm Clock ($17.99), meanwhile, contains the same instructions as the entire Creativity for Kids line: "Just Add Imagination ... there are no rules to follow, no right or wrong way to do things...." Children simply should "create, pretend, have fun, and learn." The clock itself is a retro-style model with a white metal surface and a pair of old-fashioned ringers on top. Six different acrylic paints and a fine point brush are included.

Finally, your child can be the star of art class with Totally Awesome Art ($14.99), a multi-media kit with 10 different techniques. Enclosed are black velvet, metallic...