Reflecting on the Loom Band Craze

Are your grandkids turning up with boxes of little coloured rubber bands and sitting beside you contentedly making bracelet after bracelet for your arm?

Then they too have been sucked into the giant craze of loom banding… And you can enjoy it by wearing your bands with pride.

Carol wrote in to the Starts at 60 website to show us the Loom Band made for her by her granddaughter over Easter, as did Narelle, who was pleased to find others enjoying the craze as much as her.

Some fathers, and grandfathers in a business meeting I was in last week were chuckling that they had the latest fashion accessory on their arms – a loom band made by their daughters. In fact two of them were comparing with fatherly pride their status symbols claiming their colours were best against each other!

Business people, grandparents, parents and teachers have bee spotted wearing their loom bands made for them by their special little people.

My kids have taken it very seriously. They were given a loom kit by their Nanna and Poppo at Christmas time and it took a little time to catch on. But the fact is that “looming” as it is now known in our house has become an addiction. It has gotten so bad that in the back to school process I have confiscated the loom bands so we can get a little more reading done. [My kids were so absorbed in loom bands over the school holidays I think they completely forgot to read!].

Loom band kits come in many brands, but “Rainbow Loom” is the brand my kids say all kids dream of owning. Rainbow Loom were awarded the Toy of the Year Award 2014. There are many other brands in the market, and personally I can’t see a whole lot of difference. Most kids start with a box full of bands, which can be bought from any cheap-shop and a bracket that allows the weaving of the bands to be done.

Then, once kids have got the hand of weaving a basic band, they can watch YouTube videos to get ideas of how to weave their bands into more complex weaves. Pretty soon you find they have woven themselves a whole family full of bracelets and are looking around for people to wear them. After they have mastered bracelets they find it quite fun to contemplate other things they can weave.

The video resource my kids love to use to find new and interesting things to make is YouTube

Remembering back to my own youth, something very similar was popular – the humble friendship band. My grandmother and I were massive participants in that movement. My grandmother would help me find books in the library about how to make them, then we’d made a special trip to the haberdashery to buy the threads and sit down to make the intricate knotted patterns together. And she’d never let me give up half way through.

Have you received a loom band from your grandchildren?