As I have already shared, Rainbow Loom has taken over my small house. There are elastics everywhere. My two big girls are working like they are in a sweatshop, frantically cranking out bracelets like they have a quota. I am not a big fan of the daily game of hide and seek that I play with all of those little colourful elastics, but I am happy that the girls are having fun with something that is not electronic (although having said that, they quite often have their ipods in front of them coaching them on youtube tutorials for the looms).
I take comfort in the fact that these looms have not only taken over my home, but pretty much every home of breathing young girls. We all play a daily game of find that colourful elastic in the most odd place. It's like a game of one upmanship. "Oh I found elastics in the washing machine." "Oh yeah, I found them in my underpants!" "YOU WIN!".
Recently Riley was invited to a birthday party. I did my usual routine of "what do you think that she might like?" Riley had already asked Jenna this question and Jenna's response was "Blueray DVDs", thankfully, Riley has my brain for the most part and asked a follow up question "Do you have a Rainbow Loom?" Asking this question to a girl is like asking "Do you have a mouth?" Jenna did indeed have a Rainbow Loom or one of the similar contraptions. This information shaped the gift that Jenna was to receive.
In an effort to keep all of the my girls Rainbow Loom trinkets in one place, and to make it easier for them to cart them everywhere, I recently purchased clear small totes with handles on them for both Riley and Grace. This was a perfect size for them to keep everything together, and large enough for their Rainbow Looms to fit in. This was my genius idea for Jenna's birthday gift.
Riley and I headed out on our shopping expedition earlier this week. She was uber excited to make her purchases. She poured over the loom bands, selecting a few gifts for her self too. We purchased a tote, the same as hers and Grace's. We also purchased raised letter stickers from Michaels. A trip to the dollar store was also in order to purchase a small organizer.
Last night we put that awesome gift together. Riley was nearly vibrating she was so excited. She began by applying the larger letters onto the tote, and the smaller ones onto the small organizer. Sometimes it is scary how much she thinks like me. She painstakingly applied each letter, careful about the spacing. After the letters were applied, she opened up the bands and we organized them in the small organizer, I will admit that I enjoyed this.
After we had fit as many beads and elastics into the organizer that we could, Riley placed the container in the larger container and added some extra elastics.
The final part of the gift was applying fun scrapbooking stickers onto the outside of the tote to fancy it up. When we had finished, both Riley and I had big satisfied smiles on our faces. I kept shouting out "This is such a great gift!" to be echoed by "It really is" by mini me. When we had finished Riley excitedly gathered up the left over stickers to fancy up her own tote.
So often I am at a complete loss for what to give for the multitude of birthday parties that the kids are invited to. It's important to me that we give a good gift, but good gifts generally come with a hefty price tag. This good gift did not. This gift was easily under $15. You can make it as big or as small as you would like. For one of my nieces I would probably add a Rainbow Loom (because apparently you can connect them to make larger projects), and would fill an extra organizer. For as long as Rainbow Looms are the it toy, I think this will be my go to gift.
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