Glossy Bands: Stretchy Bracelets to Share With Your Friends (Klutz)

Wot everybody needs

My 7 year old and 10 year old girls love this kit and we have bought several as birthday presents. The bracelets made aren't the best quality and are quite fiddly to make at first, but are a big hit with their friends. Good service

I thought this looked like a lot of fun. My 10 year old daughter found it a bit fiddly, and she never got it to work properly. That may be because she was stingy with the gel, but you don't get very much, so I think she was trying to make it last.At any rate, now it is just in a drawer.I think some kids might really enjoy this (I made a bracelet and thought it was fun!) but it is a bit expensive for how much they get out of it. The other Klutz products have been hugely successful so this was a bit of a disappointment.

These bracelets are super fun to make and to wear! I'm way older than their intended market (I'm 23), but I still love them, and they're easy enough to make and wear that I'm sure their target market (ages 8 and up) could make them without much trouble. Even my 20-year-old sister had to admit that the novelty aspect of being able to make stretchy bracelets like these, and fastening the flat strips into bracelets simply by sticking the ends together and wearing them for a few minutes (they permanently fuse after about 15 minutes of being warmed by body heat) is cool, even though she wouldn't be caught dead in a home-made brightly colored shiny bracelet. My only complaints are that it only comes with four of the plastic strips to put the gel on (I want to do more at once, without waiting for them to dry first, although it's probably just as well that I couldn't use up all the gel in one go), the plastic strips aren't long enough to make an ankle bracelet (at least for an adult), and so far the refill sets only come with the same four colors of gel (judging by other Klutz products though, if these do well enough they'll start selling more colors eventually).And I'm hoping the little girl I'm going to be tutoring this summer likes them, cause it would be so easy to make a division problem out of figuring out how many dots it will take to make a bracelet that's the right length for a given wrist! Incidentally, this could also be presented as an issue of counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, or measurement, depending on the age of the child. I'd say it would be possible to sneak some math into making these for at least most elementary school levels, and I think the viscosity of the gel has some potential for older kids, since the gel slowly spreads out after you put it on the plastic, which changes the shape of the bracelet and the way the dots fit together -- that one even threw me off a bit, and I have some three years of college science classes behind me. Of course, it's entirely possible to make the bracelets without thinking about any of the math or science aspects at all, but there is quite a bit of potential as an educational tool if so desired.

These are essentially like puffy paints that, when following the patterns and directions, make cute bracelets. You put large dots of paint next to each other, use a toothpick to make a design through the paint, and let dry. It comes with a number of design ideas, 4 paints, and 4 plastic strips that the bracelets are made on. Once dry, the bracelet peels off the plastic easily. You are supposed to put it on, overlap the ends (which stick to each other), and the heat from your body will fuse the ends together permanently. You then stretch the bracelet to get it on and off, and it will return to it's original size.The ends to attach to each other, but I have yet to have any heat fuse the overlapping ends together. Even after wearing it for long times and trying to get it hot. But that is okay, I have not had a problem with it coming accidentally undone. I do think if you stretch it too far, it will break apart (which is not able to be fixed, according to the instructions).I thought the toothpick part (swirling through the paint) would be tough and or messy, but it was actually easy with cute results. The instructions are easy to follow.I do think they are likely to get broken, as my 6-year-old likes to stretch out everything, but we will see. There is not a ton of paint in the tubes, but you can buy replacement paints. I'm curious if puffy paints would have the same results. Note - these paints will stain if you get them on things.Overall, cute and easy to make. The hardest part for the kids is patience - letting them dry for a full 24 hours.One idea for improvement:Put tick marks on the plastic so you can easily make different sizes.

It was fun making the glossy bands and rings but that's about it.Dry time is 24 hours and then instructions are to.....wrap band around wrist, stick ends together and in about 15 minutes it will "permanently" seal the ends together. Well, this step never worked for us, the bands didn't seal, they kept peeling apart.But.... Even if we would have gotten them to seal, the wear and care instructions are tedious.........To take it off, carefully stretch it over you hand ( so it doesn't tear ). To put it back on, run it under warm water first to make it flexible (so it doesn't tear ). Also, can't wear more than one on a wrist because they will stick together.We have MANY Klutz books......we will stick with their friendship bracelets or scoubidou books........Oh, and the book comes with "swirling sticks"......toothpicks ( hahahahhaha kudos to their marketing dept )

My 11 year old daughter loves Klutz books in general, and this was a favorite in particular. The kit is easy to use and makes quite a few bracelets (I didn't keep track, but would guess she made about 12 before she ran out of one of the colors). She easily duplicated the patterns in the book. Be aware the bracelets take 24 hours to cure, so you can't wear them right away. The only thing she didn't like is the book has photos of girls wearing several bracelets at one time, but the instructions say you can only wear one on each wrist at a time because they will stick together. She felt this was a little deceiving - especially since they look really cool worn in groups of 2 or 3. Still, they are so easy to make, she was willing to overlook that. We've ordered more of the goo already. Love Klutz!

I saw on t.v glossy bands as one of the top 10 toys for 2010. Amazon was great in getting the product fast to me in time for my niece's birthday. She loves glossy bands. They are colorful, fun and she can make them herself. My niece said, you have to really wait the 6-24 hrs for them to dry per the directions. She wore them to school and everyone wants one. Good Job!!!