How to Make Prints with Loom Bands

There’s an old saying ‘you can never have too much of a good thing’. I’d like to put forward the suggestion that, in fact, you can, and indeed we do! We have too many loom bands in our house. I know this because I find them everywhere; on the floor, in pockets, in the washing machine, even in the dogs mouth (although she always stops chewing when I look at her!)

For ages I have been trying to come up with a new way to use a few up, and the other night, in bed, it came to me! Below you’ll see our experiment in printing with loom bands!

We collected up a variety of paper, a few corks and some loom bands, then simply popped our bands around the corks in a way that we hoped would make some interesting patterns, and pushed wooden skewers in each end. We watered our paint down slightly, and tried both applying the paint with a brush, and also rolling the cork straight in the paint on a tray. Both ways worked well. Not surprisingly, the trick is to not overload the cork with paint.

We had such fun with this activity, before I knew it the kids were making hand and foot prints!

Once our paper had dried, we used it as ‘bespoke’ wrapping paper. I have to say I think it looks pretty good! Let me know if you have come up with anything unusual to print with, and if you fancy stamping on fabric hop over and check out our Washable home-made fabric paint, it’s fab, and super easy to make yourself!

For more fab kids craft ideas, check out our sticky nature cards and our dyeing with stains posts.