Rainbow Loom

Cuthberts are delighted to tell you about one of their newest products - the Rainbow Loom. Over in the US the Rainbow Loom has been a huge success in 2012 and we're proud to be one of the first to sell it in the UK. 

So, what exactly is the Rainbow Loom and what can you do with it?

 

The Rainbow Loom is a plastic loom used to make patterned friendship bracelets from rubber bands. You place the rubber bands over the pegs on the board following either a simple basic zig-zag arrangement, or one of the more complex patterns that you can find online.

Once the bands have been laid out on the loom you then use the provided hook (very much like a crochet hook) to move the bands and create a joined up bracelet.

When complete you join the two ends together with a provided "c-clip" to form the bracelet. As the bracelet is made of rubber bands it stretches to easily fit over your hand.

The kit comes with the loom, hook, 600+ coloured rubber bands and 24 c-clips, meaning that you have enough to make 24 bracelets. Also in there is a mini-loom so that you can make very quick "single" pattern rubber band bracelets.

The instruction manual that comes with the loom contains everything you need to understand how to make a "single" pattern rubber band link bracelet. These are relatively easy to follow and once you've got the knack of using the hook to move the bands about you can quickly produce a bracelet.

Things don't stop there though. The possibilities are endless when it comes to designing bracelets or other accessories. There is a very high level pattern map in the instruction leaflet, but the best instructions are actually found online, with a great selection of videos on the Rainbow Loom website.

The loom can look quite complicated once you're following some of the patterns online and it does take a bit of practice to know what you're doing. The results are worth it though.

The Rainbow Loom is aimed at children aged 8 and over and is perfect for anyone who loves crafty projects. The friendship bracelets that you can make from it also make it very popular with girls.

We'll be aiming to post some detailed Rainbow Loom tutorials here on the Cuthberts blog over the next few weeks. The Rainbow Loom will be available in Cuthberts stores next week and can also be purchased through our online store here.

Cuthberts Open 2013

There was a fantastic turn out at the Hatfield Galleria last weekend for the Cuthberts Open 2013 - the first time that the Galleria has hosted a speed cubing competition and it was an event that caught everyone's attention. Cuthberts were proud to be the official sponsors and thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone get into the Rubik's cube spirit.

People of all ages were amazed by the speed that these cubers work at, and it was great to see so much enthusiasm for a cube which started life as a simple children's toy. Judging by the number of cubes we sold over the weekend it looks like the event may well have inspired quite a few people to have a go themselves.

The competition itself was fast and furious - when you compare how long it takes you to solve a cube at home (if indeed you can!) and then look at the speed which these cubers work there often is no real comparison. In some cases, blink at the wrong time and you would have missed quite a bit of action.

Full results from the competition are available on the World Cube Association website. It's worth concentrating on the figures though. The best time logged over the weekend for solving a standard 3x3 Rubik's Cube was 6.58 seconds (by world number 3 Alexander Lau). 6.58 seconds! That's mind bogglingly fast. Even the winner of solving one of these blindfolded managed it in 43.98 seconds (the UK's Oliver Frost) I'm yet to manage to solve the 2x2 cube that I was given as part of my research for writing this article - yet the Cuthberts Open saw someone solve it in 1.67 seconds. I'm left wondering if I've been given a trick one that's impossible to solve!

As if the mental ability to solve these cubes isn't enough the manual dexterity required is also very impressive. Cuthberts caught up with world number three Alexander Lau and watched him solve a standard 3x3 Rubik's cube. Just watch how fast his hands move!

Many thanks to everyone that was involved in making the Cuthberts Open 2013 such a success - organisers, competitors and supporters. We very much hope that the cubing world will return to the Hatfield Galleria soon. If you missed all the action and are inspired to have a go yourself head down to one of our stores as all three will be stocking a range of cubes.

Creativity for Kids - Paper Petals Photo Mobile

After looking at a couple of other items from the Faber-Castell Creativity for Kids range here on the Cuthberts blog, this week we're reviewing their Paper Petals Photo Mobile.

Much as the name suggests the aim of the Paper Petals Photo Mobile is to create a hanging mobile of flowers, where you can include photographs of friends or family members in the centre of them. You can make the flowers as pretty and decorative as you like and this really does allow children (or adults) to use their creativity to decide how they want to do it. 

Once it comes to putting all the flowers together to form the mobile it's a little bit fiddly and not much room for error - making it the ideal gift for perfectionist crafters! A completed mobile would make a lovely gift for a child or new baby, with the flowers all containing photographs of family members. As the flowers are only one-sided it might be that you decide to do something else with them rather than a mobile. Our reviewers thought that they'd also make a very pretty garland, or even personalised bunting.

This definitely isn't a quick craft project, so across the suggested age range of 7 to 97 years it would probably work best for patient younger crafters or someone a little older with some time they can set aside to make the mobile (or garland, or bunting...) The fact that it's flowers means it might not appeal to all young boys, but it's definitely not something exclusively for girls either.

The Creativity for Kids range is available in the Cuthberts Letchworth store and also in our online shop here.

Introducing the Cuthberts Open 2013

How many of you have tried to solve a Rubik's Cube? The iconic 3x3 cube has had people scratching their heads since it's invention in 1974, but for some people just solving it isn't enough. They instead start trying to see how quickly they can solve it. Start trying to solve 2x2, 4x4, 5x5, 6x6 and even 7x7 cubes. Even start trying to solve the standard 3x3 cube with just one hand, or blind-folded, or with their feet. Welcome to the crazy world of speedcubing!

Cuthberts is delighted to announce that you'll soon be able to see all this for yourself as speedcubing is coming to the Hatfield Galleria for the Cuthberts Open 2013. On the 5 and 6 October 2013 the Galleria will be hosting this two day competition for speedcubers from around the world. Competitors are already registered from Belgium, China, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Poland and South Africa, as well as some home-grown cubing talent from the United Kingdom. If you or your children want to see how it's done then come on down and join us.

Russia hosted a winter open earlier this year and this video should give you a good feel for the excitement of speedcubing.



The full schedule of events in the Cuthberts Open 2013 is available here and the competition will be taking place on the upper level of the Galleria. The competition is organised by the UK Cube Association (UKCA) who in turn are part of the World Cube Association. If there's anything you ever wanted or needed to know about Rubik's Cubes then these are the people to talk to!

If you come along and are inspired to have a go yourself then the Cuthberts store in the Galleria will have a full range of Rubik's products for you to take home to try.

VTech Toot Toot Drivers Airport

Every since the VTech Toot Toot Drivers range was introduced a couple of years ago it has proved to be a huge hit with pre-school children, boys and girls alike. The range started off with a garage and range of little vehicles to go with it. Since then it's been expanded to also include extra road pieces, a fire station, a car transporter and most recently an airport.

The unique thing about the Toot Toot range is that each of the vehicles plays its own little tune, singing about what it does. This can mean that if you have several vehicles and have them all switched on at one you can end up with quite a cacophony of noise. It's not a mistake you make often!



On a one by one basis though it is a really nice touch and one which children seem to love. VTech have also made the cars to be a perfect size to fit in a little hands and they don't have any fiddly bits to cause problems for really young children. The build quality is high enough to withstand a toddler throwing them across the room whilst having a tantrum - and our little reviewer seemed very keen to test this particular feature exhaustively.

The VTech Drivers Toot Toot Airport contains a control tower, refuelling point, a weather vane, lift up barrier and several road pieces, and it also comes with an aeroplane. Attached to the control tower is a "cloud" platform which you can sit the aeroplane on and when you turn the antenna on the control tower this makes the cloud travel around the tower, making the aeroplane fly.

The cloud platform may sound like a bit of a silly feature when it's described here, but all the children I've seen play with the airport seem to find it their favourite part. Also just running round the room with the aeroplane itself also seems to be incredibly popular.

The airport also contains six SmartPoint "sensors" which make the aeroplane play certain phrases and sounds when it passes over them. These aren't really "sensors" in the true meaning of the word as what they actually do is cause a combination of small buttons on the underside of the aeroplane to be depressed as it passes over it. Depending on what combination is triggered determines the message played.

With the track that comes with it you can physically connect the Airport to other pieces of the Toot Toot Drivers range. The slight complication comes with the SmartPoint technology which was only introduced to the Toot Toot Drivers more recently. If you have non-SmartPoint vehicles then they will obviously not be triggered by these sensors. There is more of a problem though which is that the original non-SmartPoint vehicles are actually a couple of mm wider than the newer SmartPoint vehicles. This means that the older vehicles physically do not fit over the SmartPoint sensors in the track - causing a degree of frustration to little hands trying to push them round the track. The newer SmartPoint vehicles work without any problems on the old track, but if your children already have older vehicles it's something to be aware of if you plan to buy them part of the Toot Toot range that includes SmartPoint. All new Toot Toot Drivers range elements now feature SmartPoint, but be aware that some retailers may still hold non-SmartPoint stock and not yet realise incompatibility problems. 

The Toot Toot Drivers Airport is perfect for any pre-schooler who loves vehicles and aeroplanes in particular and provides it an excellent starting point for hours and hours of imaginative role play. The suggested age range for the Toot Toot Drivers range is 1 - 5 years and they really do work very well for children as young as one, making them ideal as a first birthday present.

The VTech Toot Toot Drivers range is available in all three Cuthberts stores (St Albans, Letchworth and Hatfield Galleria) as well as from our online store. 

VTech Secret Safe Diary Visual

We all know children, especially girls, love secrets and keeping them safe and the VTech Secret Safe Diary Visual is perfect for doing just that. 

The diary comes with a voice activated locking system to help keep secrets really safe and also features a colour screen and camera, making it very attractive to children. It features over 20 different activities including a virtual pet to look after, games, an alarm clock and a calendar function. There's also a secret drawer to keep physical mementoes in.

The diary features a QWERTY keyboard making it good for helping children become familiar with this style of keyboard. You can also connect the diary to a computer (using the supplied USB lead) and doing so means that you can download extras from the VTech Learning Lodge for your pet, diary or photos.

When tested out by a couple of our young customers they absolutely loved the diary. The games provided an assortment of levels meaning that it worked well for the 6-11 year old suggested age range. An older child might get a bit bored after completing them all, but for younger children there is plenty for them to play now as well as some which are too hard.

The calendar part of it was very easy to use and also good to be able to set reminders in it. The built in camera is also simple to use and good quality for what it is. The music did seem a bit "young" at times and whilst the children loved it after a while it may become a bit annoying for grown-ups, but in fairness that doesn't make it much different from many other toys.

The virtual pet proved to be great fun to look after and even provided more entertainment than looking after a real life hamster over the summer holidays!

Parents will be pleased to hear that the password isn't overly sensitive and as long as you use a work that is pretty much the same length and tone as the one set it will still open.

The only question that the parents of our reviewers had was with regards to the security of the data that children enter in the diary when it is connected up to the computer. There were worries that personal information entered, such as names, address, dates of birth and school names might be at risk. Checking with VTech though they say that this does not happen as the data flow is in one direction only, i.e. from the computer to the diary, making all the children's data safe.

The VTech Secret Safe Diary Visual was very popular with our reviewers (a brother and sister) although it has to be said that the boy would have preferred it if it wasn't only available in pink! 

The VTech Secret Safe Diary Visual  available in all Cuthberts stores (Letchworth, Hatfield Galleria and St Albans) and also from our online shop. The original VTech Secret Safe Diary is also available here. 

Creativity for Kids - Cardboard Buddies

The Faber-Castell Creativity for Kids range really does cater for kids of all ages and all different skills levels.

Cardboard Buddies allows you to use strips of coloured corrugated cardboard to create incredibly cute little creatures and other decorative objects. By rolling the cardboard strips into different shapes you can easily form bodies, heads, arms, legs, beaks and wings. Only your imagination limits you.

Included in the kit are 36 strips of the coloured corrugated cardboard, assorted wiggly eyes, pipe cleaners, rhinestones, double sided foam tape, yellow cord, plastic self-adhesive clips, self-adhesive magnets, craft glue and glitter glue. Also included is a leaflet showing you how to make basic shapes and also giving you instructions as to how to make a fish magnet.

The suggested age range for Cardboard Buddies is 7 to 97 and having tested it out with someone in the upper half of this range I think it fair to say that it really does work across the whole range. It can be a bit fiddly to start making the creations, but once you've got the hang of it you're soon in the swing as to what to do.

The only disappointment we found is that there were no instructions included to make the many buddies which feature on the box itself. We ended up keeping the box just so that we could try to work them out from the pictures. It just seemed a bit of a shame after we were so impressed with the instructions in Big Fun Stamp Art that we featured earlier this month.

The recent hot weather did provide a few problems with the supplied craft glue as the heat seemed to make it separate and lose some of its sticking ability. Making the cardboard buddies does require quite a bit of glue to make them stick together properly and I'd therefore recommend making sure you've got some spare glue at home before starting.

Overall this is a great craft project for an older child or an adult who enjoys this kind of activity. It also appears to be addictive once you start creating cardboard buddies!

The Creativity for Kids range is available in the Cuthberts Letchworth store and also in our online shop here.