I purchased this pad for my 15 month old at the end of August. It's now the end of October, so we've had it for about 2 months total, and it's kind of nearing the end of its life span. Yes, it's recommended for ages 3 and up, but my baby discovered stickers around that time and I wanted to encourage her creativity and imaginative play. When we first got it, I was delighted. There are 5 scenes: farm, dinosaur, African savanna, jungle/rain forest, and ocean. The stickers are vinyl decals. Some commenters have complained about the stickability of the decals to the backgrounds, and I agree. M&D cheaped out on the gloss on the backgrounds, so the vinyl decals sometimes don't stick very well. The vinyl decals are perfect, it's the backgrounds that are poor. This can be remedied by wetting the backs of the stickers a little, or wiping down the backgrounds. Or, you can use the M&D stickers with My First Early-Learning Sticker Books (My Little World) . This set has poor quality paper stickers that really aren't reusable, but the books are FANTASTIC with beautiful high gloss pages that cry out for these vinyl decals to stick to them. They're also FAR more portable than the M&D backgrounds,perfect for popping in the diaper bag along with some of the M&D decals. Stage 1 We received the pad, and the stickers are all in the front followed by the backgrounds. This necessitates removing the sticker sheets from the pad. I only let my daughter play with one sticker sheet at a time and some of the stickers are very small (ducks and chicks at the farm, striped fish in the ocean), so those were removed. If you're using this pad with a small child, I recommend starting with the dinosaur decals, which are the largest, followed by the savanna and then rain forest. My daughter had a great time removing the stickers from the sheets and placing them on the backgrounds. Stage 2 I tried to keep the surrounding outline vinyl on the sticker sheets, so I would know where to replace the stickers in between play times. This failed, as my daughter eventually ripped the background vinyl off. So those outline vinyl sheets were thrown away. However, then I could never get all the stickers back on to the sticker sheets because they had been placed 'just so' as to maximize space. So now I as many stickers as I can fit on the sheets and the rest (10+ total) on the backgrounds. Stage 3 Eventually, after a few weeks of play, the backgrounds got ripped out of the pad as well (at this point they were only loosely in there anyway). So now the 'pad' becomes more like a portfolio folder, for holding the sheets with the stickers and the backgrounds with the remainder stickers. Stage 4 My daughter discovered that the backgrounds stink, and aren't very sticky. She goes in search of more sticky surfaces to place the stickers. Walls with high gloss paint, the glass shower doors, the bathroom cabinets, the hall doors with high gloss paint. Yippee! So now I have stickers everywhere. This actually isn't SO bad. It's a nice activity to occupy her in the bathroom while I take a shower. Stage 5 In moving the decals all over, to the various surfaces around the house that are glossy, the paper backgrounds have completely fallen into disuse. The stickers are scattered all over the house in various places. Now when I find one in a random place I pick it up and deposit it in a 'sticker pile' we have on a shelf in the bedroom. Eventually they will all be placed back on the sticker sheets or backgrounds in the 'folder'. Unfortunately, the paper backgrounds are dead. Nothing sticks to them. They're just tucked in the pad/folder, along with some of the sticker sheets with some stickers here and there. In the beginning I was keeping the different themed stickers separate, but now they're all mixed up across the sheets. Daughter still loves this toy (it's only been 2 months), but the pad itself is decimated. Will likely buy a new set of them around Christmas, or maybe wait until spring when she turns 2. Overall, this is a very fun toy. If using with a child under the recommended age range, obviously play must be supervised to prevent potential ingestion of any stickers. Even at 1.5 it's a wonderful learning tool for teaching animal names and sounds and encouraging creative play. However, like most M&D products, it's scores very high in the idea department (the concept) but low in the construction department (all M&D products are now made in China, with apparently high safety standards, but low quality control). This sticker pad just isn't made to last, nor are the backgrounds even made to have the decals stick. Come on M&D, would a few cents more for a bit more gloss on the pages really have been so terrible?! Ugh. Anyway, this sticker pad costs less than a Starbucks coffee and lasts exponentially longer, so I can't complain too much.
