Very disappointing
You can not use the frame as a hoop, despite the description. There's no inner hoop for it. The frame is super cheap plastic. Weak and not very attractive. There's barely enough of the light blue floss -- if everything goes perfectly. If you make a mistake and break the floss removing stitches (or trim too early, and have to undo stitches back to the beginning of a length of floss), there will not be enough to finish that color.
The diagram shows a lot of quarter cross stitches, but with the canvas and needle provided, they're impossible to do. There's no hole at all in the part of the canvas where regular stitches cross, and the needle is ball pointed. (Unfortunately, I did not have a pointy needle of the right size at home. It's a kit. I should be able to follow the instructions with the items provided.)
This was an impulse purchase -- very cute at first glance, but I couldn't help being bothered, as I looked at it more, by the weird hearts and star mysteriously stuck to the snowman's body. And the overly busy-looking birdhouse hanging from the scarf is just weird. Luckily, there is enough white to leave the weird stuff out if you want. I got rid of both hearts, and replaced the birdhouse with a red star (yellow french knot), and it looks fine.
by: Rachel on 6/12/2017