We missed the release of colAR Mix when it came out at the end of May, but a rave review on TechCrunch put it firmly on our radar. It’s a “3D colouring book app” that looks marvellous fun for children.

Here’s how it works: you download and print out some picture pages from the colAR Mix website, then get your children to colour them in. Then point your iPhone, iPad or Android device’s camera at the piece of paper to see the drawing turn into a 3D animation – WITH the colours that your child used.

There’s an airplane, a teddy bear, a dragon and a girl among other designs. Normally you pay to upgrade to the app’s full version using an in-app purchase, but at the time of writing it’s free until 28 July.

colAR Mix is a free download for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, and also a free download for Android from the Google Play store.

Here’s a video demo: