TobarTobar FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS, 9660

This was my first time at making bracelets via Kumihimo. I can't say enough how easy I found this product and it was excellent value also. Although this product is aimed at children, it is brilliant for adults who want to learn kumihimo. Children would probably need help from an adult to understand what to do, but after that so easy. My advice would be to follow the instructions to the letter, especially when it recommends cutting your braids to 50cm in length. This is sufficient and means you will be able to get the 10 bracelets out of the kit that it says you will. However, I made bracelets using the colours I wanted rather than those as shown on the box and made my braid lengths too long, so I have waste! If you use the red and white braid to make a heart bracelet...you won't be disappointed! On the middle of each wheel you will see a pattern I.e. hearts, diamonds, flowers and lines and you will need to attach a total of 16 lengths of braid to a wheel to make a bracelet, each braid length being 50 cm long. The 8 large teardrop shapes on each wheel represent 2 strands of coloured braid. So, if you look at the wheel which has the flower design in the middle for example, the blue colour on the teardrops represent one colour braid of which you need 9 strands. 6 strands are needed for the red coloured teardrops and 1 strand for the yellow part on the teardrop, equalling 16 strands in total, and you can use whatever coloured strands you want. If you look at the flower pattern on the wheel, you can see that the strand on the yellow part of the teardrop will make up the inside of the flower. So if you Wagtail the inside of your flower to be pink, use one pink strand for the yellow teardrop. The strands on the red teardrops make up the petals and the blue teardrops make up the rest of the bracelet surrounding the flower shape. You can use whatever colours you want. The red, blue and yellow only show the pattern. I know this may appear confusing but if you read the instructions and are struggling then the above may help. Just have a good look at the wheels. It is so easy once you know what to do and the resulting bracelets, which hardly take anytime to make are lovely. I hope this helps.

My granddaughter should be happy with these.

I would say this isn't really suitable for ages 5+ as it says on the box, perhaps 10+ would be a more suitable age.Once you get the hang of it you can make some nice bracelets though.Overall I was a but underwhelmed with the product.

Okay so I read the rest of the reviews and thought that I would try it despite the mixed ratings. I am 32 years old but bought this for me having bought a friendship bracelet on holiday and remembered how good they look.The box: no, it isn't the one in the picture and I suppose it looks a bit cheap. It came packaged in a box about four times too big and so was not damaged at all.But everyone who has gave it a bad review for just this is missing the point as most of them have bought this as a gift and have not actually tried the product. It is brilliant. It is not the flat friendship bracelets that I expected but makes braid. I have learnt since that this is kumihimo, which was used by samarai warriors.My advice to anyone thinking of buying this product is just do it, make the first one following the instructions, wonder at how professional it looks and then get on the internet to look at all the ways of starting and finishing them to make them look even better. I'm trying double length strings, folded to create a loop (which I have then plaited) at the start and am going to put a bead on the end. I can't knit, my sewing is less that mediocre but I can make friendship bracelets like a pro!

Paid extra for next day delivery and it duly came the next day. Although the kit did not look too exciting at first glance, my 9 year old grandson loved it and spent all day making a bracelet on the wheel. (It was his sister's birthday and lots of friends had come to the party, but my grandson spent most of the afternoon picking the wheel up and adding to the bracelet). My only criticism was that there were no instructions included and so we had to go on line to find some. (We found one that described easy friendship bracelets on a wheel.) Once a grown-up had started the bracelet my grandson got the hang of it straight away. He was highly delighted with the finished bracelets and says he prefers these bracelets to the loomband ones he has been making for the last few months. He is looking forward to going on Youtube to find more intricate designs. I would highly recommend this kit because it is value for money and lovely bracelets can be made very easily with it.

I was so pleased when I received this friendship bracelet box. I was expecting to get one wheel as there wasn't much in the description, but when I opened it up it had 2 wheels with different patterns and lots of different coloured thread. The instructions were easy to follow and very quickly I was making a cord bracelet! It is a different style to most friendship bracelets and that is why I bought it.We took this on a 2 week camping trip and it kept us all busy on a wet day, or quiet time before bed. My husband was even making them! At the end of the holiday we were all wearing 3 each! We had to find a craft shop to buy more thread!Excellent value for money, for hours of creative fun!

Seemed like a good idea and thought it would make a good gift for an 8yr old grand daughter, who enjoys crafts. Sadly, not at all a success. This kit is not nearly as easy to use as I'd thought from previous reviews and even with two of us working on it, it was close to impossible to turn out anything even approaching a wearable bracelet.Couldn't recommend to others and would not buy again.