Product Review: Friends 4 Ever Bracelet Kit from Growing Tree Toys

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Growing Tree Toys is committed to providing educational toys that challenge, stimulate, and encourage children to express their creativity. Growing Tree Toys features award-winning, educational toys; stimulating learning toys; baby toys; toddler toys and more - quite simply the very best in childrens' toys for kids of all ages.   You can shop on their site by types of toys, by gender of recipient, and by AGE groupings! I have found that their age groupings are right on and perfect!

I was recently sent the Friends 4 Ever Bracelet Kit by Alexa Toys, to review this month!

A super-stocked craft kit for best friends, the Friends 4 Ever Bracelet Kit includes 4 color-coded foam looms, which allow kids to make 2 distinct bracelet styles in 8 funky patterns; 22 colors of floss; funky beads for adding special accents; and a beading needle, making it easy for kids to create unique friendship bracelets in no time.Recommended for age 8 and up, I was willing to give it a try with my daughter!

We tried 2 of the projects. The first was using the round loom. let's just say there is a learning curve, and it's REALLY helpful if you go to the Alexa Toy site and watch their video on using the looms- the instructions are much clearer then! But we added some beads and made a key ring out of it, so daughter was happy!

We waited for a day where we had plenty of time and started again with one of the square looms (note: I like the round looms much better, as they are easier to hold in your hand (curve into your wrist) and I found myself starting to get a hand cramp from using the square one by the time we were done). In the picture below you can see that the looms are color coded, so you know exactly where to start the different colors of thread. This was a 4 color bracelet!

And this is what it looks like from the side. As you can see, you have to make sure to keep you strings tangle free, and the bracelet itself hangs down in the middle. The strings slide thru the slots in the loom and are very easy to move around. 

Note- you have to keep the SAME tension on the completed part of the bracelet and the strings you are working on, or you get changes in the size of your bracelet. I found that when I was holding the round loom, I could keep a much better tension. As you can see from the finished bracelet, it went back and forth in size-as happens when a 3 yr old is helping you move the strings around and tension gets loose!

Wala-the finished product! Not bad, not super, but I learned alot making this one and the next one will be MUCH better!

Lessons learned: 

1. After tying your initial note, you divide the threads to make your loop. You should braid each side of the loop, as it helps keep the threads from fraying as much when you push the end knot thru when wearing your bracelet.
2. If you are using the square looms, make your side threads at least 2 inches LONGER than the other threads! Because they are basically encasing the other threads, they might run short before you want them to! 
3. The beads are great but are much easier to put on with 1 strand of the 6 strand floss AFTER you finish the bracelet!
4. A 3 yr old's attention span only last 1 round of the loom. You then get to do 4 or 5 before they return for another round! 
5. These is a great kit and I would HIGHLY recommend it for a summer vacation to keep pre-teens occupied enroute to your location in the car, or on the plane!  Also great for a Brownie/Camp Fire/Girl Scout troop.
6. The carrying case is perfect to keep all your supplies together and in one place!

All in all I would say this is a great kit to share with your daughter, or for her to share with her friends! like other Growing Tree Toys, it is a quality product and I highly recommend it!

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Disclosure: I received this kit free of charge as part of the Growing Tree Toys Blog Sponsorship Network, for review purposes. No other compensation was given.