Faces iMake

The old way of making a collage would involve lots of coloured paper, odds and ends, scissors and glue. Faces iMake is an iPad app that gives parents the opportunity to let their kid's creative juices flow, without the mess.

One starts out by choosing a basic face shape from a number of options and stretching it out to whatever size one likes on the screen. Then, pick from among 200 objects ranging from candy to tools to food for the physical features of the face or other details. The objects can be resized and rotated as needed. One can also choose to work on collages from the inspiration gallery of co-creator Hanoch Piven's work, editing them to suit one's own creative fancy. The collages can be saved in a gallery to be worked on later and can be shared on Facebook or via e-mail.

I tried out the app on my craft-inclined five-year-old niece and it kept her occupied for about an hour. After watching a couple of the tutorials, which offer ideas on what can be done, my niece was off to a good start creating her own faces. She found the app simple to use on her own once she was shown the basic functions.

Although engaging, an older child might tire of the basic features available. To up the ante, the app allows you to use photographs from your own gallery or to photograph an object and use it in the collage. It's easier to work with objects on a plain background, but there are tools to crop out the background if necessary. However, a child might find this difficult and require a parent's help.

Parents can also get involved by suggesting themes for the creation or clicking and cropping photos and suggesting their use.

Faces iMake has a catchy soundtrack that drew the attention of my 17-month-old son, though the rest of the app proved too advanced for him. Instead, I ended up spending a good 20 minutes with the app myself, unleashing my own inner Picasso.