Totally Awesome Rubber Band Jewelry

Totally Awesome Rubber Band Jewelry by Colleen Dorsey         Paperback Book:  48 pages         

I saw this title while looking for something else and requested it thinking, that sounds cool.   I am always looking for fun, simple and inexpensive crafting ideas to do stuff with the kids in the family and I thought wow, crafting with rubberbands.   I have done a little of that in the past when I taught pre-school so I thought it would be fun to learn some new rubberband crafts to learn how to do and file in my cache of fun stuff to do when the kids are over.    I was a little disappointed with this book.    The jewelry designs are clever and cute my two priorities when crafting.  The thing I found disappointing was that you can’t just do it with a big pile of rainbow colored rubberbands, you need a loom to complete them.    I like making art out of simple, let’s grab a couple of thing and beging but this entales having to come up with a loom or if working with a bunch of little ones you almost need one for everybody as patience for waiting turns is not the strong suit as everyone including me want to start creating immediately and not have to stand in line.   That sucks.   So, while I give kudos to the subject, I give boo! Dos to the implementation part.    Seems to add an unnecessary step and true it is not a major step, these looms, they mention 3 different ones to get for various projects, aren’t that hard to get but when you are in the mood for a pick up and go project it Is just off-putting to have to get something in order to do what seemed like a one-step project.    The items they demonstrate making are cute and look fun, but like I said, I like the grab and go projects not having to do a lot of set up, just pull together your crafting supplies and begin.   So, yes on the designs but no on the not having immediate gratification without making a trip to a craft or toy store first.   In hind-sight I would have passed on this book for the extra step of having to acquire equipment rather than just being able to do the project on its own.   I would recommend this book only with the caveat that you need to buy something else to make it work. 

- Shirley J.