Make Rubber Band Bracelets With a Rainbow Loom

This just in! A new how-to guide book for the Rainbow Loom. It's called The Loomatic's Interactive Guide to Rainbow Loom. This book is filled with 204 pages of step by step instruction for making over 50 projects on the Rainbow Loom. The book even has QR codes that you can scan with your smartphone that will take you directly to the official Rainbow Loom You Tube channel!

I bought this right away when it came out recently for my girls. I can't yet attest to their opinion of it because it's a holiday gift so they haven't seen it yet; however, I flipped through it and it looks great.

If you are considering buying a Rainbow Loom for someone as a gift or just for the fun of it, I say GO FOR IT! My daughters, now almost-7 and 8.5, have had their Rainbow Loom for about a year now and have not lost interest one bit (if you're a parent, you know that for a toy to keep their attention for more than five minutes is a miracle!) They pull out their bands frequently and pump out tons of beautiful rubber band bracelets. For a while my oldest daughter even had a little business going at school - she was taking custom order requests and selling them for $0.50 to $1 a bracelet and she did quite well! I have to admit, they ask me to help sometimes and when I do I end up taking over and not handing the Rainbow Loom back because I get kinda addicted - I can most certainly attest to the fact that it's simply FUN to make these rubber band bracelets!

There are several reasons to buy a Rainbow Loom:

• It helps your kids use their brain and imagination.
• Allows users to improve their manual dexterity (this is great for kids!)
• Almost instant gratification - a bracelet can be completed in just minutes!
• Keeps kids busy.
• Doesn't take up a lot of room.
• Easy to learn.
• Fun to do.
• Kids love it (and some parents, too!)

Kids are simply fascinated with this craft and it's a great way to fuel their creativity and keep them busy.

Another great thing about creating Rainbow Loom crafts is that there are so many possibilities in styles. There's the standard, simple, single bracelet, there's the fishtail, there's the double and triple, and you can make rings, too! You can also purchase additional looms and connect them together for even larger projects.

There are a lot of different solid color bands, as well as tie-dye, glow-in-the-dark, neon, glitter and more. Kids are also able to add charms to their bracelets.

My daughter once connected a whole bunch of her bracelets into one long chain that she then used as a jump rope! See? The possibilities are endless (well, almost!)

• You can easily incorporate pony beads (or just about any bead for that matter) into a bracelet by simply threading the rubber band through the bead before you place it onto the loom pegs.
• It's best to hold your Rainbow Loom hook like a pencil. It's easier to use and this is why it's also great for young kids to help develop their pencil grasp.
• The hook actually has four functions: first, the obvious one - to hook your rubber bands when making projects; second, it can be used to temporarily hold your bracelets in progress until you can add a c-clip; third, the end opposite the hook is used to take the loom apart for different configurations; fourth, the larger end fits into the blue cap, which itself can be used to create rubber band bracelets.

Learning how to use the Rainbow Loom is pretty easy. It comes with instructions to create a simple and quick single band bracelet and provides you with sources to get additional help.

In today's world, we can always count on YouTube to find a "How to" on almost anything, and, yes, there are a ton of how-to videos on creating rubber band bracelets of all kinds and other Rainbow Loom projects. There's even a Rainbow Loom Channel on You Tube! You'll find a couple of how-to videos down below.

There seems to be an endless supply of tips and tricks and how-tos on the internet so it's very easy to find help simply by doing a Google search. Here's a blog that I found that has a lot of great information: fall under the Rainbow Loom spell

One of the most important things to consider when investing in a Rainbow Loom is how to store all the rubber bands and other supplies such as the c-clips, the loom, the loom tools, etc. If you don't get a good case, you'll find yourself with tiny little rubber bands all over your house.

Another thing to consider when buying a storage case is size and number of compartments. Ideally, you want each rubber band color to have its own storage compartment to make designing and making the bracelets easier. That being said, there are so many colors and styles available now that you may actually need more than one case if you can't find one big enough. You can probably tell by my picture here, we are about due for a second case - for both of my girls! The good thing, though, is that the cases are flat so they easily fit on a shelf, under the bed, or anywhere you want to easily store it.

Additionally, when shopping for a storage case for your rainbow loom supplies, make sure that either the compartments within are adjustable or, if not, make sure there is a larger compartment within to store the loom itself (it's 10.25" long, 1.5" high, and 1.75" wide.)