Latest craze

As a girl in elementary school I always enjoyed various craft projects and spent a lot of time entertaining myself with such things.  There was this item, which allowed you to make projects with yarn without actually knitting or crocheting...

 

There was a circular one also which made a tube of yarn.  I don't know what you were supposed to do with such an item but it was fun!  I remember taking this project on car trips.

 

There were these potholders made from stretchy loops...

 

 

Pardon these huge pictures...they are obviously from google images and when I try to shrink them to better size nothing happens. 

There were a few forays into latch hook...


 I actually bought a latch hook kit featuring a cat (not the one shown) when was bored after I took my first bar exam and didn't have a job.  I still have the half finished project in the box.  Maybe when I retire...

There were these tiny beads that you could melt together with an iron...



And of course who can overlook my favorite...friendship bracelets. 



I learned a basic five string finger weave method at camp one summer and added several other types over the years.  I had an impressive embroidery floss kit with many colors.  When we went shopping at stores with floss my mom indulged me by letting me get some new colors (skeins of floss were quite cheap lucky for her!).  It was a delight to get one of the huge multipacks with a rainbow of colors.  My two best friends also enjoyed this hobby and we had matching floss winding tools that hooked onto the floss box.  I still have my floss box with it's little divided compartments.  I have the urge to make a bracelet right now!  Because I don't have anything better to do and I shouldn't be preparing the house for the impending baby...

The reason I bring this nonsense up is because, from what I gather from internet articles and such, there is a new craft craze among elementary school age girls called Rainbow Loom.  It is kind of a mix of several of my favorite childhood crafts. 



Apparently, you use the loom and those little rubber band looking things to make jewelry. 



There are tutorials all over the internet (what is shown above are apparently "beginner" level) and every color of bands you could ever want.  Girls have kits with the loops sorted by color just like my old friendship bracelet box! 

I can't help but wish I had a daughter or pre-teen cousin so I would have an excuse to get in on this trend.  It looks like the usual friendship bracelets except stretchy and removeable (and a bit less 70s macramé boho).  This would be a good thing since real bracelets made of string were on for good once the knot was tied and always got so dingy and when you wore them in the pool you were stuck with a wet stringy thing on your ankle or wrist for a few hours afterwards.  For some reason I remember them being mostly a summer vacation thing that we cut off when school started.  Probably because they were so nasty from being attached to a kid's appendages all summer long.